Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Ben Kingsley, Claudia Ferri, Cйline Bonnier, Vlasta Vrana, Liliana Komorowska, Von Flores, Al Waxman, Mitchell David...
An American naval officer is recruited by the government to impersonate the most vicious and cold-blooded terrorist there is in order to catch him. But are things really what they seem to be?
AMAZON.COM REVIEWS FOR THE ASSIGNMENT (1997): This intense thriller is a work of fiction with a factual basis. Aidan Quinn stars as Annibal Ramirez, an American naval officer with a striking resemblance to real-life international terrorist Carlos "the Jackal" Sanchez, the scourge of innocent people all over the world in the 1970s and '80s. Mistaken for Sanchez by the Israeli Mossad, Ramirez is arrested but subsequently recruited by the Mossad and the CIA to pose as Sanchez and set him up as a traitor to his underwriters. Ramirez leaves his family, receives training in all aspects of Sanchez's life, and is pulled into the netherworld of terrorism and espionage. Director Christian Duguay (Screamers) wisely emphasizes character growth over obligatory action, drawing compelling portraits of an American intelligence official (Donald Sutherland) preoccupied with Sanchez, his Israeli counterpart (Ben Kingsley), and Ramirez himself, a man whose identity has merged with a monster's. --Tom Keogh