Assassination Tango: Critic Reviews

The dance scenes are lovely, but by the end it hits you that the assassination is the movie's real tango, and that few artists have caught the swirl and kick of modern male aggression better than Duvall.

If Mr. Duvall's finely textured performance is a testament to the power of good screen acting to lift a film above the mundane, the movie's many irritating tics demonstrate that he is much more at home in front of the camera than behind it.

Even Marlon Brando wouldn't be able to keep this from being the last tango in Buenos Aires that anyone is likely to see on screen for a while.

Something of a noirish thriller, although Duvall's script drops the ball big time in this regard.

Generally delivers in none of the areas it penetrates, not as a thriller, not as an encomium to the tango, not as a tribute to a passionate relationship.

A great character actor's love letter to the one art form that makes him feel like a star.

The film is scrupulously posture-free.

While the assassination plot is interesting, the rest of Tango is dramatically flaccid.

Yes, it's murky, but if you enjoy watching Mr. Duvall dig into a gnarly character, the script's flaws fade in importance.

Duvall has created it from the inside out, seeing it not through the eyes of the audience but through the mind of Anderson.

It's a film whose pleasures creep up on you.

A wonderfully crafted, smartly acted study of a complex old coot.

An ode to love and art while simultaneously a reminder of human frailty.

If this sounds like an awkward combination, it is.

It's a curious and unsatisfying lark, in which Robert Duvall the actor is rendered speechless by Robert Duvall the writer and sideswiped by Robert Duvall the director.

Overlong and far less engaging than Duvall's earlier Angelo My Love and The Apostle.

What we care about in Assassination Tango is the tango, not the assassination.

The studied pace of Duvall's film, and his carefully measured performance, will win over more patient patrons.

About one commanding performance, fascinating to watch but not strong enough to redeem the muddled story line on which it hangs.

For those who do not demand a firm adherence to formulas and genre-driven expectations, this movie offers the chance to see something a little different.

While [its] diverse parts don't always coalesce, Duvall's performance is a fully dimensional, richly robust keeper.

Duvall missteps in trying to mesh suspense with a love story.

Written and directed by Duvall, Assassination Tango is a wonderfully eccentric piece of filmmaking -- to demand it cohere to formula would be to miss the point.