Assassination (1987)



Director - Peter R. Hunt

A greying Charles Bronson, at the peak of his middle-aged man magnetism, plays Jay Killion, the chief bodyguard to the President of the United States. When a new president is elected, he is assigned to the First Lady, played by Bronson's real life wife Jill Ireland.

The First lady, or "One Mama" as "Killi" and his team call her, is an unmitigated bitch, and frankly I get the feeling this might not be much of an acting stretch for Ireland. But hey, my boy was married to her, so she can't be that bad right? Ugh!

Supposedly she's got some high ideas about feminism and independence which cause her so much abhorrence to security, that she repeatedly belittles and overrules Killion to prove her point. Simultaneously, someone is actually trying to kill her, so it's balls-to-the-wall for Bronson. If that wasn't enough, he's got to deal with his hot asian sidekick, Charlotte, who repeatedly and openly attempts to seduce him into the sack. This is the best part of the movie if you ask me. Her first (on screen, it's made clear) attempt ends with a casual but understandable brush off, but he's not made of steel, and pretty soon, she's barely wearing a thing, and asking the big guy to move in. Buttoning his shirt with a big grin on his face he says:

"Hey, I don't want to die of a terminal orgasm."



The one-liners between these two are priceless, even if it's clear that she can't act one bit, it's pretty awesome to see Bronson get some smokin'….Otherwise, there's some pretty standard action fare as the plot moves towards its terminal boregasm. A helicopter is in there, along with some shoulder-launched surface-to-air missles, and a dunebuggy purchased in a rare moment of humor from "Indian Joe", but the best part of the requisite excitement factor is a multiple dirt-bike, exploding barn scene in which there are several close dirt-bike explosion escapes.



There are a few short scenes in which it feels like you might have some good acting starting to heat up, but these are soon over, and the result is an irritating series of predictable (admittedly mildly fascinating) spoiled bitch tantrums from One Mama. Bronson handles it all with poise, sticking to both his guns, and in the end you can't help but admire the guy even more for powering with grace through such bland gimmicky garbage.

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