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The Assignment

1997, Action/Mystery & thriller, 1h 55m

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Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn) is an American naval officer who looks remarkably like notorious international assassin Carlos Sanchez (also Quinn). Veteran CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) has a vendetta against Sanchez and recruits Ramirez to impersonate the fugitive. Along with Mossad operative Amos (Ben Kingsley), Shaw begins training Ramirez to become Sanchez, but the mission proves to be incredibly perilous, and the American soon wonders if it's worth the risk.

Genre: Action, Mystery & thriller

Original Language: English

Director: Christian Duguay

Producer: Tom Berry , Franco Battista

Writer: Dan Gordon , Sabi H. Shabtai

Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2014

Box Office (Gross USA): $540.1K

Runtime: 1h 55m

Production Co: Columbia, TriStar Pictures

Cast & Crew

Aidan Quinn

Lt. Cmdr. Annibal Ramirez, Carlos

Donald Sutherland

Jack Shaw, Henry Fields

Ben Kingsley

Claudia Ferri

Maura Ramirez

Céline Bonnier

Vlasta Vrana

KGB Head Officer

Liliana Komorowska

Carl Mickens

Mitchell David Rothpan

Joey Ramirez

Gregory Hlady

Gabriel Marian Oseciuc

Frederic Desager

Kliment Denchev

KGB Technician

Yonathan Gordon

Ndiouga Sarr

Nigerian Oil Minister

Manuel Aranguiz

Venezuelan Oil Minister

Leni Parker

OPEC Receptionist

Christian Duguay

Screenwriter

Sabi H. Shabtai

Franco Battista

David Saunders

Executive Producer

Joseph Newton Cohen

Cinematographer

David Franco

Yves Langlois

Film Editing

Normand Corbeil

Original Music

Michael Joy

Production Design

Art Director

Denis Sperdouklis

Costume Design

Karen Margiotta

Mary Margiotta

Lucie Robitaille

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Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) has experienced the terror first-hand. He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn). With the aid of his Israeli Intelligence counterpart, Amos (Ben Kingsley), Jack trains Annibal to impersonate Carlos through a series of harrowing physical and psychological exercises and draw the real killer out of hiding and into an elaborate trap.

The Assignment

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, christian duguay, aidan quinn, donald sutherland, ben kingsley, claudia ferri, celine bonnier, technical specs.

Cuban-American navel officer Annibal Ramirez is a dead ringer for Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez. His features are so close to those of Sanchez that he is brutally interrogated as a terrorist while on vacation in Israel. American counter-intellegence agent Jack Shaw and his Israeli counterpart Amos realize they can use Ramirez as bait for "The Jackal." Wanting to serve his country, Ramirez is unsure he can survive the physical and psychological trials he must endure to become like Sanchez. By the end of the training, however, Ramirez knows Sanchez better than anyone alive and enters the world as "The Jackal."

Vlasta Vrana

Liliana komorowska, mitchell david rothpan, gregory hlady, gabriel marian oseciuc, frederic desager, kliment denchev, yonathan gordon, ndiouga sarr, manuel aranguiz, leni parker, jacques lavallée, david francis, daniel pilon, richard jutras, hisham zayed, ted whittall, francis del vecchio, lisa wegner, lucie laurier, neil kroetsch, matthew dupuis, paul stewart, claude genest, michael caloz, david franco, heinz becker, louis bouchard, mark knoeffel, andres lange, martin morf, marcello adatto, benoit alarie, francois allard, pierre allard, alec anderson, michael annett, georges archambault, itzik ben aroya, henri aubertin, jean-paul auclair, nancy auclair, cheryl bainum, mihaly balasko, sandor balo, gyula balogh, itzhak bareli, krisztina barkoczky, franco battista, marc h beaulieu, louise bedard, benoit begin, marc bélanger, novek belanger, richard belanger, caroline beliveau, jocelyne bellemare, christian bergeron, sylvain bergevin, josee bernard, jacques f bernier, michel bernier, mickey binyamini, brian black, andras bogdan, jean boivin, michel bolduc, michel b bordeleau, philippe bosse, diane boucher, virginie boudreau, claude boulet, mary bradley, anderson chet bradshaw, cecile braemer, karoly braunner, michel brohez, michel brouillette, joseph lang browns, joseanne brunelle, frances calder, andrew d campbell, jean-francois campeau, helene canse, alain caporicci, johanne caporicci, annie carignan, claudine carpentier, tim j carroll, denis caspar, yves castonguay, jason cavalier, michel cerro, guylaine chagnon, stephane charron, jean chasse, jozsef cirko, steve clark, steven clark, alain clouatre, guy cloutier, gary coates, joseph n cohen, didier communaux, stephane connolly, sam coppola, normand corbeil, ryal cosgrove, francis covan, mike cozons, donna croce, gabor csakovics, zsolt csutak, denise d'amours, francois daignault, louis dandonneau, gary daprato, james darling, luc deguise, jean-yves denis, louise deschenes, marc desourdy, melina dicristo, robert ditchburn, kristen dolenko, jacques dorion, marion doucet, pascal dufaux, gina duhamel, paul dupont, yanick dusseault, john dykstra, bram eisenthal, shimon elimelech, zsolt feher, attila feherhegyi, bruno ferland, deak ferrand, natalie fleurant, raoul fortin, martin fournier, charlene francique, sassi franco, monika frankl, mario fraser, rene frechette, michel frenette, zoltan fulop, yiftach gabai, daniel gagnon, francine gagnon, sylvie gagnon, paul-emile gallant, gilbert garcia, jean-francois garcia, patrick garcia, benoit gauthier, francois gauthier, michel gauvin, sebastien gervais, nimi getter, michel ghorayeb, michel ghoyareb, stephen gilbert, natalie ginat, suzanne gingras, manon girard, moshe gissis, johnny goar, shai goldenberg, francois gosselin, melany goudreau, anne grandbois, jennifer-lys grenier, naama halperin, johnny harkala, avidan hatuka, terry hawkins, claude hazanavicius, simon hebert, r j henning, roger hewett, mark hoffman, julie houle, monika hufnagel, daniel huysman, france hyman, silvi imbeault, yehuda sar israel, pierric jouvante, michael joy, daniel juneau, boaz katzenelson, nick kerridge, shabtai kimhi, yaacov kimmelfeld, bobe kiraly, attila kiss, pini klavir, michael konydes, daria korolus, agota kovacs, balazs kovacs, gabor kovacs, tamas krausz, yohannan kredo, maurice krouche, brigitte labelle, helene lafrance, eric lafrance st-pierre, stephen laidlaw, miscellaneous notes.

Released in United States Fall September 26, 1997

Limited Release in United States September 26, 1997

Released in United States on Video March 17, 1998

Based upon a true story.

Completed shooting June 27, 1996.

Began shooting February 11, 1996.

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Rotten Tomatoes® Score

In its low-rent way, it aims for every frisson, reversal and shock-tactic -- and mostly succeeds.

Like for most action pics, character development is the first casualty.

Stylish spy flick with a surprisingly good cast.

A non-formula spy thriller without the glitz and romanticism usually associated with this genre.

If there's a small saving grace to this crude thriller, it is the work of Montreal-born director Christian Duguay, who shows flashes of real flare.

The plot raises the keenly important question of whether professionals who fight evil may be corrupted by the ruthless means they employ; but the movie takes too much pleasure in sensationalistic digressions to explore this issue very thoroughly.

Quinn is excellent in the dual roles of Jackal and Ramirez.

Additional Info

Genre : Thriller, Action
Release Date : September 26, 1997
Languages : English
Captions : English, Spanish
Audio Format : 5.1

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The Assignment

Cast & crew.

Aidan Quinn

Annibal Ramirez/Carlos

Donald Sutherland

Jack Shaw (Henry Fields)

Ben Kingsley

Claudia Ferri

Maura Ramirez

Céline Bonnier

Average 5.8

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the assignment.

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"The Assignment'' is a canny, tricky thriller that could serve as an illustration of what this week's similar release, "The Peacemaker,'' is not. Both films involve an international hunt for a dangerous terrorist, but "The Peacemaker'' is a cartoon and "The Assignment'' is intelligent and gripping--and it has a third act! Instead of an action orgy, it has more than enough story to see it through to the end and keep us absorbed the whole way. Yes, it ends with a deadly struggle, but as the setting for another stage of the movie's web of deceit.

The film is centered on a CIA plot to discredit and kill Carlos, the feared terrorist who operated for years, despite the best efforts of the free world's security agencies to capture him. Donald Sutherland plays Fields, the CIA agent for whom Carlos has become an obsession, and when he finds a U.S. Navy officer named Ramirez ( Aidan Quinn ) who's a dead-ringer for the terrorist, he devises a risky scheme: He'll train Ramirez to impersonate Carlos, then use the double to convince the KGB that their attack dog is disloyal. As a result, Carlos will either be dead or, almost as good, discredited in the eyes of his sponsors.

Fields works with an Israeli named Amos ( Ben Kingsley ) in training Ramirez, after first using psychological tactics to persuade the reluctant Navy man to leave his wife and family and become a counter-terrorist. (The scene where Fields shows Ramirez a dying child in a hospital is a direct echo of " The Third Man ".) Then the false Carlos, is sent into the field to work the deception, which I will not describe.

"The Assignment'' is fascinating because its characters can be believed, because there is at least a tiny nugget of truth in the story, and because from the deceptive opening credits, this is a film that creates the right world for these characters to inhabit. Sutherland's CIA man is especially well drawn: "I don't have any family,'' he says, "and I don't have any friends. The only people I've ever cared about were the ones I've killed.'' Quinn plays a dual role, as Ramirez and Carlos, and has some tricky scenes, especially one in which a former lover of Carlos helps train him sexually so that he will be a convincing bedmate for another of the terrorist's lovers.

The screenplay, by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai , has action scenes that grow from the story and are not simply set pieces for their own sake. It's impressive the way so many different story threads come together all at once near the end.

The director, Christian Duguay , is new to me. What he has is a tactile love of film, of images. He and the cinematographer, David Franco, don't use locations so much as occupy them; we visit Jerusalem, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Tripoli and Moscow (or sets and effects that look like them) and yet the movie's not a travelogue but a story hurtling ahead.

I have seen so many lazy thrillers. They share the same characteristics: Most of the scenes involve the overpriced star, the villain is underwritten, and the plot is merely a set-up for the special effects, the chases and the final action climax. "The Assignment'' gives us ensemble work by fine actors, it has a villain of great complexity (developed through the process of imitating him), and at the end there is a tantalizing situation for us to unravel as we leave the theater.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

The Assignment (1997)

Rated R For Strong Violence, Sexuality and Language

115 minutes

Claudia Ferri as Maura Ramirez

Aidan Quinn as Annibal Ramirez/Carlos

Ben Kingsley as Amos

Celine Bonnier as Carla

Directed by

Christian Duguay
Sabi H. Shabtai

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The Assignment (1997)

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Jack Shaw has experienced the terror first-hand. He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez.

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Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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September 26, 1997 Will the Real Terrorist Please Curl a Lip? Related Article Additional New York Times Film Reviews Forum Join a Discussion on Movies By STEPHEN HOLDEN f you believe that Elvis still lives or that a millennial invasion of flying saucers is imminent, you might buy the bogus premise behind Christian Duguay's spy thriller, "The Assignment." It is the late 1980s, and the world's most vicious terrorist, Carlos Sanchez, known as the Jackal, has been darting around the globe for decades gleefully setting off bombs that kill and maim hundreds of innocent people. After years of frustrated pursuit, the CIA and Mossad jointly decide that the only way this fiend can be stopped is to train a body double to impersonate him and fool his chief employer, the KGB, into believing he has betrayed them. Then the Russian intelligence organization will carry out an execution that (for reasons that remain foggy) has been off-limits to the CIA. The poor fool who is dragged kicking and screaming into the job is a Cuban-American naval officer named Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn), a Carlos look-alike whom Mossad has arrested in Jerusalem after mistaking him for the terrorist. Annibal is carted off to Montreal where he undergoes a bizarre training ritual. Day after day, he is fed the same indigestible porridge that Carlos was forced to eat as a child, given LSD to test his mental equilibrium (in this tame "trip" sequence the walls seem to bend and curve) and forced to run around in the cold dodging snowmobiles. Having been intimidated and brainwashed into becoming Carlos's approximate mental double, Annibal is given the ultimate acting lesson: sexual tutoring with one of Carlos's discarded girlfriends. This ludicrous S-and-M training session in which Annibal is baited into punching the woman in the mouth, licking the blood from her lips then performing oral sex, may rank among Hollywood's 10 all-time silliest erotic sequences. From here, Annibal is dispatched to Libya, where one of Carlos's current girlfriends (and couriers for his bombs) waits hungrily. Although she tells him he seems "different," she appears to accept a charade that, if you really think about it, would be impossible to carry off. Underneath all this foolishness, "The Assignment" ponders some unsettling notions about revenge and the boundaries of personality. The engineer behind Annibal's impersonation is a rancid CIA officer named Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) whose obsession with eliminating Carlos has made him into a moral monster. And Sutherland, who is all glinting eyes and evil facetious smiles, does his familiar Mephistophelian shtick with customary panache, battling a screenplay that forces him to deal out yards of stumbling exposition. (Ben Kingsley is largely wasted in the role of Amos, the Mossad agent who first intimidates Annibal and then becomes one of his bosses.) The movie toys uncertainly with the idea that Annibal's training re-makes his personality. During a brief visit home to his happy family in Washington, his wife (Claudia Ferri) is appalled at what a surly aggressor he has become. Naturally, a face-to-face encounter between Annibal and Carlos (also played by Quinn), is inevitable. And when it takes place, the movie does a crispy efficient job of suggesting that the two really have become indistinguishable. Suddenly the notion "You are what you do" takes on new connotations. It could be amended to say, "You are also what you pretend to do." PRODUCTION NOTES THE ASSIGNMENT Rating: "The Assignment" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has sexual situations, profanity and gory scenes of terrorist violence. Directed by Christian Duguay; written by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai; director of photography, David Franco; edited by Yves Langlois; music by Normand Corbeil; production designer, Michael Joy; produced by Tom Berry and Franco Battista; released by Sony Triumph Films. Running time: 122 minutes. This film is rated R. Cast: Aidan Quinn (Annibal Ramirez/Carlos), Donald Sutherland (Jack Shaw), Ben Kingsley (Amos), Liliana Komorowska (Agnieska), Claudia Ferri (Maura Ramirez) and Celine Bonnier (Carla).

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The Assignment

With action set in the U.S., Canada, France, Libya and Israel, "The Assignment" has the makings of a vintage international spy thriller, but the story of American and Israeli agents trying to entrap notorious real-life terrorist Carlos (The Jackal) Sanchez comes off disappointingly flat. As usual, Montreal helmer Christian Duguay delivers all kinds of eye-catching visuals and crackerjack suspense sequences.

By Brendan Kelly

Brendan Kelly

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With action set in the U.S., Canada, France, Libya and Israel, “The Assignment” has the makings of a vintage international spy thriller, but the story of American and Israeli agents trying to entrap notorious real-life terrorist Carlos (The Jackal) Sanchez comes off disappointingly flat. As usual, Montreal helmer Christian Duguay delivers all kinds of eye-catching visuals and crackerjack suspense sequences. But the less-than-inspired script takes way too long to get into high gear and simply doesn’t dispense the requisite amount of thrilling moments. The film remains a reasonably entertaining suspenser, but it will be a challenge for Triumph to attract a substantial audience given pic’s lack of marquee star power and the crowded action marketplace. B.O. will likely be better overseas and in the video market.

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The evil Jackal is first introduced in a flashback to early 1970s Paris, where the longhaired killer Carlos (Aidan Quinn) is shown tossing a grenade into a crowded cafe. CIA operative Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) just happens to be sitting outside the exploding coffee shop and, after seeing the effects of Carlos’ nasty handiwork, Shaw vows to hunt down and destroy the terrorist any way he can.

Globetrotting tale then jumps forward 15 years to mid-’80s Jerusalem, where squeaky-clean U.S. naval officer Annibal Ramirez (also Quinn) is on vacation. He is picked up and interrogated by Israeli intelligence agents after Mossad commander Amos (Ben Kingsley) becomes convinced that Ramirez is, in fact, the dreaded Carlos. It appears that the upstanding naval veteran and the murdering terrorist look remarkably similar.

The mix-up is eventually ironed out, and Ramirez heads back home to Norfolk, Va. In the meantime, Shaw has somehow heard about this guy who is practically the identical twin of his arch-nemesis, and he heads to Ramirez’s home to convince the naval officer to impersonate Carlos in an elaborate scheme to reel in the Jackal. Thanks to some heavy-duty strong-arming from Shaw, the initially reluctant Ramirez gives in and accepts the risky assignment.

Then it’s off to Montreal for some rigorous, downright strange training overseen by Shaw and Amos, with Ramirez learning to dodge oncoming snowmobiles, shooting blanks at people, eating dozens of bowls of porridge each day and ingesting hallucinatory drugs. The far-fetched plan is to make the KGB, which is sheltering Carlos in Libya, believe that Carlos is about to switch sides and go over to the CIA. Once they discover this, the Russians will presumably bump off Carlos themselves.

Ramirez meets an old g.f. of Carlos’, Carla (Celine Bonnier), and Shaw and Amos force him to have sex with the sultry woman just so he’ll pick up a few tips about Carlos’ macho style in the sack. After that, he is ready to hook up with another old Carlos g.f., Agnieska (Liliana Komorowska), in a crucial part of the sting.

A key problem here is the length of time it takes for story to reach optimum cruising speed. After nearly an hour, Ramirez is still in training at a dilapidated penitentiary and has not even hit the road to try to draw Carlos from his lair. Duguay, who showcased a sure hand with energetic thrills ‘n’ spills in his previous feature, “Screamers,” once again shows he is a fine action helmer, with various high-adrenaline chase and shootout sequences. But the tale is simply not strong enough to perk up interest, and scripters Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai have not provided enough character development to compensate for the lackluster pacing.

Quinn is the best of the leads, giving some much-needed depth to his portrayal of the goody-two-shoes career naval officer who discovers his own dark demons while impersonating Carlos. Sutherland hardly breathes any life into his role, and Kingsley is equally uninspired.

Duguay, a former cinematographer, and lenser David Franco give the pic a great look and know exactly how to shoot the fast-paced action scenes. All other tech credits are first-rate.

Production: A Triumph Films release of an Allegro Films production, with the participation of the Quebec and the Canadian governments. (International sales: Columbia TriStar, Culver City.) Produced by Tom Berry, Franco Battista. Executive producers, David Saunders, Joseph Newton Cohen. Co-producer, Stefan Wodoslawsky. Directed by Christian Duguay. Screenplay, Dan Gordon, Sabi H. Shabtai.
Crew: Camera (color), David Franco; editor, Yves Langlois; music, Normand Corbeil; production design, Michael Joy; art direction, James Fox; costumes, Ada Levin; digital effects, Richard Ostiguy; sound, Thierry Morlaas-Lurbe; assistant director, David McLeod; casting, Mary Margiotta, Karen Margiotta, Lucie Robitaille. Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Gala), Sept. 9, 1997. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 115 MIN.
With: Annibal Ramirez/Carlos - Aidan Quinn Jack Shaw/Henry Fields - Donald Sutherland Amos - Ben Kingsley Maura Ramirez - Claudia Ferri Carla - Celine Bonnier KGB Head Officer - Vlasta Vrana Agnieska - Liliana Komorowska With: Von Flores, Al Waxman, Mitchell David Rothpan, Gregory Hlady, Gabriel Marian Oseciuc, Frederic Desager, Kliment Denchev, Yonathan Gordon, Ndiouga Sarr, Manuel Aranguiz, Leni Parker.

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Film / The Assignment (1997)

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A 1997 spy thriller film directed by Christian Duguay , starring Aidan Quinn , Donald Sutherland , and Ben Kingsley .

While on holiday in Jerusalem in 1986, Cuban-American naval officer Annibal Ramirez (Quinn) is detained and roughed up by Israeli intelligence officer Amos (Kingsley). Turns out Annibal is the spitting image of 'Carlos the Jackal' Sanchez, the infamous Venezuelan terrorist who has evaded every attempt to kill or capture him. The mistake is eventually sorted out but, gives Amos an idea. Together with Jack Shaw aka Henry Fields (Sutherland), a CIA operative with his own axe to grind with Carlos, they plan to use Annibal to frame Carlos as a CIA informant, so he will be murdered by his own side.

Not to be confused with the 2016 action movie by Walter Hill .

This movie has the following tropes:

A former prison is used for Annibal's one-man Spy School . As a child Annibal had to visit his father in a Cuban prison, so this is a deliberate Mind Screw from his trainers.
Annibal meets Carla in a derelict building in the Dead Sea, where the only furniture is a bed — all that's needed for the training he receives there.
All Girls Want Bad Boys : In her very first words, Carla spells out what Carlos' appeal to women is. Carlos: The thing about Carlos is... he doesn't lose himself with a woman. A lover is not different to him. He might have a use for them , so he has to seduce them properly, make sure they're so crazy about him that they'll do anything for him. It's not... not pleasure, it's a sick kind of conquest. He'll do anything... he is the perfect lover. He'll do it all, not to please you, but to excite you, to make it dangerous for you. (starts to stroke herself between her thighs) It's very sexy too, to a woman that danger, like he could kill you in a second but instead he makes you come. And it's like he's killed you and there isn't anything left of you and... he makes you be reborn again the way he wants you to be, so there isn't a thought in your brain that he hasn't put there. Not a feeling in your body that he hasn't put there.
And Your Little Dog, Too! : When Annibal talks of leaving the operation, Shaw says he has no problem using Annibal and his family as The Bait to lure out Carlos. Having already attracted the attention of a terrorist he bumped into by coincidence, Annibal can't afford to ignore the threat.
Asshole Victim : Annibal sees a father slapping his son for underperforming at baseball. When Annibal tells him to chill out, he gets in Annibal's face and receives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown . Shaw has to bail him out of jail to continue the mission. Shaw: He was a Baseball Dad — he deserved it!
Bait-and-Switch : After seeing Carlos in action in Paris 1974 and Vienna 1975, we cut to 1986 with Carlos apparently planning a terror attack in Jerusalem. This turns out to be our protagonist, Annibal Ramirez, playing tourist while his ship is docked in Haifa.
Annibal and Shaw wear beards and wigs when meeting in an East Berlin café. The KGB use Facial Recognition Software to remove the beards and match their faces with photos of Carlos and known CIA counterterrorism agent Henry Fields. Of course this was the plan all along , and the fake beards only increase the chance that the computer will give a false positive result for Annibal.
Carlos wears a fake mustache and wig for the Paris bombing.
Be Careful What You Wish For : After the Libyan disaster Annibal wants to go home and see his family. Then Amos is killed and Annibal is sent home just when he's motivated to go ahead to make Amos's death mean something.
Becoming the Mask : Annibal is trained to think and act like Carlos, so much so that it starts to affect his normal behaviour.
Big Fancy House : The East Berlin safehouse used by Carlos and his fellow terrorists. The large grounds make it easy for Annibal to pretend to be leaving or entering as 'Carlos', when he's actually hiding in the surrounding woods.
Black-and-Gray Morality : Carlos is a thrill-seeking sociopathic terrorist, but Amos has Annibal snatched off the street and held for days without charge, and Shaw is a cynical manipulator so obsessed with catching Carlos he's prepared to destroy Annibal's life and let hostages die in Vienna just for revenge.
Blofeld Ploy : Carlos wonders out loud who revealed his safehouse in Libya, then cheerfully assures an underling that it couldn't be him, because: "We go way back." (shoots him through back of chair)
At the start of the movie, Carlos puts out a cigarette on a spider. At the end of the movie Annibal goes to do the same...but stops.
When told that Carlos has 70 hostages in Vienna, Shaw snaps, "Fuck the hostages!" When a wounded Annibal tells Shaw to leave him and go after Carlos, he snaps, "Fuck Carlos!" and carries Annibal to safety.
Boom, Headshot! : The first DST agent shot by Annibal; the other is a Cruel and Unusual Death , and another blows up with his car , making it obvious that Annibal has definitely killed them .
Brief Accent Imitation : Annibal eventually confesses everything to his wife, including his infidelity, then walks out on her to finish the mission, saying in his Carlos voice: "I'm late for work."
As the Libyan police examine the charred remains of the DST car and the taxi abandoned by Annibal, a van passes by and a KGB agent leans out to take a photo .
The KGB snap several shots of 'Carlos' meeting a bearded man in an East Berlin pub , and subject them to Facial Recognition Software .
Camping a Crapper : A terrorist takes Annibal into a Heathrow airport restroom to be interrogated by having his head shoved in a toilet bowl . Fortunately Amos sees him being led off and follows, leading to a Mutual Kill .
Character Tics : Carlos likes to lower his sunglasses to look at people, a habit that Annibal copies.
Carlos sends a Japanese terrorist to kill Agnieska, ordering him to exfiltrate via London. While at Heathrow airport, he runs into Annibal who, posing as Carlos, asks the terrorist what he's doing there. As Carlos should already know this, the terrorist does an Impostor-Exposing Test that Annibal fails.
When Annibal is blaming himself for not having bluffed the Trust Password , Shaw tells him there's no way he could have guessed it, and relates an incident where he killed a man who didn't know the correct countersign: "But not as sticky as two summers ago." When Shaw finds himself confronted by two Carlos's, he uses this phrase to establish which one is Annibal .
Chekhov's Gunman : Agnieska is introduced bringing Carlos the hand grenade he uses to blow up the café.
Chekhov's Skill : As part of his spy training, Annibal must enter a mock-up apartment and work out from clues if the woman living there has been cheating on her husband. Later Annibal uses the same technique to establish that Agnieska met someone in the Libyan safehouse before he got there.
City of Spies : The climax takes place in East Berlin.
Code Name : On starting Spy School Annibal is given the codename 'Miguel', so he asks if 'Jack Shaw' is also a codename. Shaw claims it's his real name, but he is referred to as 'Henry Fields' by his colleagues and the KGB.
Confronting Your Imposter : Annibal is still on the grounds of Carlos' safehouse when the KGB launch their assault, so he lays low. But seeing that Carlos is about to escape, he pursues and ends up fighting Carlos hand-to-hand. Carlos: (staring) Who Are You? Annibal: I'm you, motherfucker. (headbutts Carlos)
Contrived Coincidence : Annibal just happens to be identical with one of the most notorious terrorists in the world, arrested after being mistaken for him then recruited by the CIA. On top of that, he's also Latin American and even has the same last name, Ramirez. Since he's a US citizen and Navy officer, this makes his recruitment far easier.
Cruel and Unusual Death : Annibal shoots a DST agent who falls screaming off a roof onto several power lines and goes up in a blaze of sparks.
Darkest Hour : Annibal is feeling guilty because he killed four agents from his own side. Then Amos gets killed after a terrorist spots Annibal at Heathrow so the operation is suspended by the CIA Director pending review, making it look like it's been All for Nothing .
Dark and Troubled Past : Annibal's father was imprisoned in Cuba.
A Darker Me : The secondary purpose of his training is to bring this out of Annibal, replacing the rules-bound naval officer with someone more like Carlos.
Dark Side : Shaw even quotes from The Empire Strikes Back . "How do you stand this shit Annibal? I mean they're all so fuckin' constipated. [snip] You don't belong to them. You belong to me. Remember what Darth Vader said to Luke, "Come over to the Dark Side"? Come over, Annibal. You have no idea of the power we have."
Disappeared Dad : Carlos' father abandoned his family for a playboy lifestyle, and Amos advises Annibal to use his feelings about his own father (see Dark and Troubled Past ) to empathise with Carlos and become him.
Dissonant Serenity : When told there might be another two months training (though this might be another psychological ploy), Annibal blows his stack and insists he can take any test they can think up. So that night Amos and Shaw spike his food with LSD . Amos worries they might have gone too far, but they find Annibal the next morning with his feet up on the table , dressed and groomed and ready to go to the next stage.
Dodge by Braking : Annibal is in a stolen taxi that's falling apart under the abuse, being pursued by DST gunmen. He drives down a stairway halfway then pulls on the handbrake and ducks — the car behind hits the back of his own, flips over and bursts into flame .
Don't Call Me "Sir" : At the start of his training, Shaw tells Annibal to stop calling him sir because it gives away the fact that he's military.
Double Entendre Annibal: I have everything I want to eat, right in front of me. (goes down on Agnieska)
Eiffel Tower Effect : The movie opens with two kids urinating on the cobblestones, then a crane shot pulls up to show a view of 1970's Paris including the Eiffel Tower. Apart from this however the trope is avoided, using Scene Shift Caption instead.
Empathic Environment : Annibal goes home to his family on a bright sunny day. That night it's raining and he gets into a shouting match with his wife.
External Combustion : We hear a car start before it explodes in a ball of fire.
Faking the Dead : The Ramirez family get into their car which explodes into a ball of fire and an Empathy Doll Shot . Carlos gets a newspaper clipping announcing their deaths. After a funeral that Shaw attends, we see Annibal watching his family playing on the beach.
Fire-Forged Friends : Annibal with both Amos and Shaw.
Foil : Carlos is described as a superman compared to rules-bound, Happily Married family man Annibal. Amos: Carlos is the opposite, that's what makes him so seductive, you know? He can kill whoever he chooses, ravish whoever he chooses, take whatever he chooses, do whatever he chooses.
Foregone Conclusion : Carlos will obviously survive as he was caught in 1994 and is currently serving multiple life sentences in a French prison.
Fresh Clue : In the Sherlock Scan exercise, the milk in the fridge is only slightly off, indicating that it's been replaced recently and hasn't been sitting there a week.
Annibal kills four French agents escaping the DST trap in Libya.
In the climax, Shaw mistakes Annibal for Carlos and gleefully puts several shots into him.
Annibal deliberately knocks over various objects while fleeing through a Jeruselum marketplace to slow his pursuers down.
The DST do a drive-by shooting of the contents of a Libyan market stall.
Gallows Humor : As Amos is dying, Annibal jokes that he can't die yet as he never got around to suing him.
Gambit Pileup : Annibal gets caught in a trap set by the French DST to catch the real Carlos. Shaw: How could we know? It was their operation and they didn't tell us about it. I mean, we sure as shit didn't tell them about you.
Gender-Blender Name : Annibal has this problem as his name sounds like "Annabelle". When the Baseball Dad makes a snide comment about it, Annibal has him Talk to the Fist .
Going by the Matchbook : During the Sherlock Scan exercise, a matchbook in the rubbish bin tips off Annibal that his fictional wife met someone in a bar.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking : Carlos smokes, so Annibal has to as well. His wife is not happy. Maura: You started smoking again? Annibal: Yeah, I'll be doing heroin soon.
Grenade Hot Potato : In the Paris bombing, Carlos can be heard counting down after pulling the pin on his grenade before throwing it into the café. After taking hostages in Vienna, he trolls one of them by fiddling with a hand grenade as if he doesn't know how to use it, pulling the pin, then tossing the grenade to the terrorist guarding the door, who throws it outside at the police who've just shown up.
Hallucinations : For his final test, Amos and Shaw spike Annibal's food with LSD. The subsequent trip includes Talking to Themself (as naval officer, resentful spy trainee, and Annibal-Carlos), Dark and Troubled Past (visiting his father in a Cuban prison as a child) and parental fears (Carlos playing baseball with Annibal's son...using a grenade).
The Handler : Shaw for Annibal.
Annibal is introduced to their Mossad liaison, who turns out to be Amos. Annibal refuses to shake his hand because he's still pissed about what happened in Israel.
Played for drama during the Vienna airport scene (see Nothing Up My Sleeve ).
Heartbeat Soundtrack : When Annibal is being questioned by a Libyan customs officer on his first mission.
Hero Stole My Bike : While escaping from the DST, Annibal carjacks a taxi, throwing the driver out onto the street where he barely avoids getting hit by another vehicle.
High-Dive Escape : Carlos dives from a balcony into the Spree River to escape the KGB. Annibal dives right after him.
Hyper-Awareness : Carlos has this ability, picking up even the smallest out of place details in a location, which Annibal is taught to double him.
Identical Stranger : Annibal and Carlos aren't related at all; they're from completely different countries.
Impostor-Exposing Test : While buying duty free cigarettes at Heathrow Airport, Annibal is approached by a Japanese terrorist that Carlos sent to kill Agnieska. Terrorist: (quietly) What are you doing here? Annibal: (in Carlos voice) Buying cigarettes. What are you doing here? Terrorist: (politely) Excuse me, sir, I only wanted to know where I can get a newspaper? Annibal: Libya, quite a tragedy. (leaning close) I told you never to address me in public! Over by the phone booth and wait; I'll come to you. (goes to leave) Terrorist: Excuse me, sir. (jams carry bag concealing a gun into Annibal's ribs) I asked... if you knew... where I can get a newspaper. ( Oh, Crap! look on Annibal's face) You make the slightest move, and I shoot. And I don't miss.
Indy Ploy : Subverted; Annibal is able to fool an ex-girlfriend of Carlos because he's had months to prepare. When he tries to wing it at Heathrow Airport, it doesn't work.
Insane Troll Logic : Annibal points out the idiocy of training in snowy Canada to catch someone who's in the Middle East.
Institutional Allegiance Concealment : Annibal is travelling in mufti while on leave in Israel, and ditches his dogtags and ID while being chased by men he assumes are Arab terrorists. Amos doesn't believe that he's a US Navy officer until one of his men finds Annibal's bag, and even then the Israelis hold him for three days until they're absolutely sure he's not Carlos.
It's Not You, It's My Enemies : Even though he wants to sort out the mess he's made of his home life, Annibal must leave to continue the mission because his family will never be safe as long as Carlos is alive.
It's Personal : In 1974 while Shaw was sitting outside a Paris café, he was recognised by Carlos who borrowed a light off him , then proceeded to the balcony above and threw a hand grenade into the crowd. Shaw survived the attack, but was humiliated by having missed one of Europe's most wanted men when he was literally right under his nose .
Just a Stupid Accent : When he's snatched off the street by the Israelis, Annibal thinks he's been kidnapped by terrorists so exaggerates his Cuban accent so they won't realise he's an American officer.
Karma Houdini : Averted in the long run; Carlos escapes both the CIA and KGB, but is now persona non grata in both East and West. Without a sanctuary, he's eventually captured in 1994.
Lady Drunk : Carla is introduced swigging directly from the bottle, which she then rolls across the floor to Annibal so he can take a drink too. Given that she was betrayed by the man she idolized, is now working for her former enemies, and is about to have sex with a man who is the spitting image of her ex-lover so he can kill Carlos , one imagines she has a lot to drink about .
Latex Perfection : Annibal skillfully uses this for the risky first meeting with an ex-lover of Carlos. She enters the safehouse in Libya only to be grabbed by a bald-headed man in a mustache who threatens to kill her (and other things ) if she doesn't reveal where Carlos is. Agnieska denies knowing anyone of that name, whereupon the man peels off a latex headpiece and removes his fake moustache to reveal a smiling 'Carlos'. As such mind games are entirely in character for him, she's entirely willing to believe it's done to test her loyalty , instead of a trick to make her less able to see one impersonation behind the other .
Latin Lover : Carlos is always shown either in bed with a woman, or with an attractive female terrorist among his entourage.
Leave No Man Behind : When Amos is shot, he tells Annibal to leave him to die alone because it will be All for Nothing if Annibal's cover is blown. After being shot Annibal urges Shaw to leave him and chase after Carlos, but Shaw finally puts aside his vendetta and carries him to safety.
Lie Back and Think of England : Being Happily Married , Annibal isn't as glad as he should be that the next stage of his training involves having sex with a beautiful French ex-lover of Carlos. Shaw: Don't think of it as cheating on your wife, think of it as... fucking for your flag. Amos: [mock gravitas] When in doubt, close your eyes. Think of England.
Manipulative Bastard : Shaw turns up at a US Navy ball and proceeds to push Annibal's buttons, looking for a weakness. Does he resent the Gilded Cage of a career Navy officer? Is he attracted by the freedom and power of a spy? His country needed him and he Refused the Call ; wouldn't that look bad on his personnel file? None of it works, until Shaw has Annibal brought to the bedside of a boy the same age as his son injured by a bomb that Carlos planted. Annibal later realises the whole thing was just a performance for his benefit.
Married to the Job : Shaw: I don't have any family, I don't have any friends, and I think the only people who mattered to me are the ones that I killed. And you.
Mistaken Nationality : An admiral goes on about how good it is that Mexican-American officers are coming up through the ranks, until Maura politely informs him that they are, in fact, Cuban-American.
Modesty Bedsheet : Gender-inverted; the women are shown fully naked while Carlos or Annibal is the one whose groin is always hidden by the sheet. The Fanservice Extra with Carlos does however cover herself with the sheet in a hurry when one of his goons walks into the bedroom .
Mutual Kill : Amos and the Japanese terrorist shoot each other at the same time.
Annibal after shooting a French agent in the face. It quickly goes From Bad to Worse as the DST keep attacking and he has to kill several more to survive.
Annibal sees a man slapping his own son during baseball practice. When the man gets in his face Annibal beats him up, then realizes his own son has witnessed this.
Shaw misses Carlos when he's right in front of him in Paris.
The protagonists trigger a trap to catch the real Carlos, causing the death of several agents of an allied country.
Annibal tries to pose as Carlos when he encounters a terrorist at Heathrow airport. He's quickly exposed and Amos gets killed saving him.
Annibal is drowning Carlos in the river when Shaw turns up and shoots Annibal, mistaking him for Carlos despite knowing that Annibal is in the area.
Carlos throws a grenade into a Paris café. The explosion breaks a gas line which blows up the entire building.
Annibal shoots a French agent who then falls off the roof onto powerlines which go up in a blaze of sparks, making it really clear to Annibal that he killed the guy .
Carlos sends the Japanese terrorist to kill his ex-girlfriend for turning informer. Agnieska is shot in the head as she's leaving a building with her DST guards, then a nearby car bomb blows everyone up.
No One Gets Left Behind : Annibal has to abandon Amos to die in an airport restroom, rather than compromise the operation. When Annibal is shot in the climax he urges Shaw to leave him and go after Carlos, but Shaw carries him to safety instead, saying Carlos is as good as dead anyway.
Nothing Up My Sleeve : Shaw plans to kill Carlos during the hostage exchange at Vienna airport, using a mechanical device that launches a derringer into his hand. But as Shaw reaches out to Carlos, the CIA station chief shouts for him to stop—Carlos instinctively levels his submachine gun at Shaw, so he doesn't dare move. The station chief, unaware of Shaw's intentions, says, "You don't want to have your picture taken shaking his hand."
Not Right in the Bed : Since Annibal will have to interact and likely sleep with Agnieska, the CIA has to actually work to avert this trope. So Carla, an ex-girlfriend of Carlos who is now under Israeli protection, instructs Annibal in Carlos' domineering sexual technique. However Annibal's wife Maura becomes suspicious when he starts using what he's learnt in their lovemaking.
"Not So Different" Remark : Annibal: (to Shaw) YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO CARLOS IS? YOU TAKE A GOOD LOOK IN THE FUCKING MIRROR!
Not What It Looks Like : Annibal gets snatched off the street in Jerusalem — turns out the Arab men who grabbed him are working for Mossad, and they've mistaken him for Carlos planning his next terrorist act.
Amos when he's handed Annibal's dogtags and US Navy ID card.
Annibal when told he's going to Libya. This is just a few years after the first Gulf of Sidra incident, so for a US naval officer in The '80s it would be like walking into Mordor .
"WHO DID YOU MEET WITH?" "The French Secret Service. The DST."
Annibal in Heathrow when he's asked for a countersign that he doesn't know.
Annibal pretends to leave the Big Fancy House that Carlos has, meets with Shaw where he'll be photographed by the KGB, then returns to the house and hides in the woods outside. Unfortunately, the KGB turn up in force before he has a chance to slip away.
Shaw empties his gun into the man he thinks is Carlos…and then a second Carlos appears and he realises he might have made a terrible mistake.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business : Annibal shouts down his wife when she accuses him of infidelity, and beats up another father at baseball practise.
The Only One : Justified as a Doppelgänger to a famous terrorist, who also happens to be an officer of your own country, is not exactly common. Shaw: The governments of most of the countries of the Free World have been trying to get Carlos for the past ten years. And they have come up with absolutely nothing. Because there's really only one way to get him. Which is to say there is exactly one person in the whole world, who can get him.
Overt Operative : Shaw is recognised by Carlos in Paris; unfortunately Carlos is disguised so Shaw doesn't recognise him until it's too late. Shaw: We are both very well known in this business.
Papa Bear : When Shaw threatens to let Carlos know where his family is, Annibal threatens to kill him , and slaps aside the pistol that Shaw draws regardless of the danger.
Pull the Thread : While in the safehouse in Libya, Annibal notices an unfiltered cigarette in the rubbish bin — Agnieska only smokes filtered cigarettes. On being confronted Agnieska says that she went to the café to buy food and bummed a cigarette off someone there. To her relief 'Carlos' appears to buy this...but he then realises that the nearest café is two blocks away and she would have finished and thrown away the cigarette before then.
Refused the Call : When Shaw first approaches Annibal, he's more interested in suing the Israeli government than going on some looney James Bond mission. Shaw proceeds to push every button he can find on Annibal until he finds the one that works.
Revenge Before Reason : Shaw is obsessed with catching Carlos after his humiliation in Paris. However after accidentally shooting Annibal he comes to his senses and helps him to safety instead of pursuing Carlos when urged to.
Rogue Agent : Shaw is reminded that the CIA is not in the assassination business any more, but is willing to kill Carlos in Vienna regardless.
Roofhopping : Annibal escapes from the Libyan safehouse by leaping to a balcony on the opposite side of the street and fleeing across the rooftops. When he gets down to the ground however, he finds the DST haven't given up the chase.
Shaw tries to goad the straight-laced Annibal into this trope.
There's a Record Needle Scratch on a gramophone player just as the KGB are about to kick down Carlos' door. Everyone freezes until they hear Carlos continue talking inside.
Sex God : Played With . Carla comments that Carlos was very skilled in bed, but he's an egomaniac who only pleasures women for his own ego. He was also physically and emotionally manipulative even during sex, and she basically describes his " appeal " as a Fetishized Abuser . She clearly resents having enjoyed sex with him as much as she did.
Sexual Karma : Since Annibal will have to sleep with Carlos's girlfriend while pretending to be him , he has to learn to have sex like Carlos did in order not to make the girlfriend suspicious . So he has Carla, an ex-girlfriend of Carlos, instruct him on it, and she makes it clear Carlos is a skilled lover , but also a domineering and aggressive one who's into Erotic Asphyxiation . By contrast, Annibal is Happily Married and has a healthy and vanilla relationship with his wife Maura (and loathes to have to cheat on her for the mission). When he has sex with her using the aggressive sexual technique Carla taught him, she doesn't enjoy it and tells him to stop as he's hurting her, with the implication only "bad" girls enjoys "bad" sex .
Sexy Discretion Shot : Annibal's and Carla's "sex training" cuts away just as he starts going down on her.
Sherlock Scan : Carlos is able to find anything that doesn't belong simply by looking around a room, and Annibal learns how too (e.g. the leftover ash from another man's cigarette in the garbage).
Shooting Gallery : Annibal takes part in an exercise that tests both his memory and shooting skills. He walks through a graveyard and when his trainer calls out a name, he turns towards the gravestone engraved with that name, behind which is hiding another man armed with a paintball gun shooting back at him.
Shoulders-Up Nudity : When Annibal strips down at Carla's request, the camera stays just above his waistline.
Slap-Slap-Kiss : An Invoked Trope . Carla tells Annibal to take off his clothes so she can teach him how Carlos makes love. Carla: [looking down] You're smaller than him . Annibal: [awkward laugh] Really... Carla: [slap] That's what he would have done if I had said something like that. Without a moment's hesitation. What's wrong with you? No eres ni hombre! [She goes to slap him again — Annibal hits first knocking Carla across the room.] Annibal: Look I--I'm sorry, I-- Carla: Shut up! Come to me, come on...kiss where you hit. [Annibal tries to kiss her lips — she turns her face away] Kiss where the blood is. Spread it on my lips so I taste it...
Slasher Smile : Carlos grins at Shaw from the café balcony before throwing a grenade into the crowd below.
Something Only They Would Say : Annibal proves his identity to Shaw when he says "awfully warm for this time of year", to which Annibal replies "but not as sticky as two summers ago". These are the two halves of a code phrase that was part of an assignment from long ago that his handler mentioned in conversation.
Spies In a Van : DST and KGB surveillance teams are shown operating from vans, though the KGB men outside the East Berlin safehouse are crammed into a Lada.
Spot the Imposter : While passing through Heathrow Airport, Annibal is approached by a Japanese terrorist who knows Carlos. Annibal makes the mistake of posing as Carlos instead of himself, but realizes too late he's been given a codephrase to which he doesn't know the countersign. Afterwards Shaw mentions a similar incident where he killed a contact who didn't have the countersign, and later uses this story to tell the difference between Annibal and Carlos in the climax.
Spy's Suspicious Spouse : Justified; her husband really is cheating on her. She assumes his altered behavior is due to stress from working on a submarine (Annibal's cover story for being out of contact for so long).
Suddenly Shouting Carlos: You want to go? Let's go. (tying shoes) I want to be interrogated. (throws bra in mook's face) I demand— (picks up SMG hidden under clothes and opens fire) TO BE INTERROGATEEEED!
Superpowered Evil Side : Before he goes into Libya, Amos gives Annibal some advice. "When you look in the mirror, I don't want you to find Annibal Ramirez: find Carlos. Cause if you find Carlos that's what everyone else will find too. And if you find Carlos and anything goes wrong, he's the only one who can get you out of it, because he's the best at what he does."
Throw Down the Bomblet : While being chased on foot by DST agents driving a car, Annibal drops a live grenade onto the pavement and lets them drive over it.
Training from Hell : The training is designed to push Annibal to his limit both physically and psychologically — not only to teach Annibal how to survive when he doesn't have the massive support structure of the US Navy behind him, but to force him out of his comfort zone and into the mindset of a wanted terrorist.
Training Montage : Though the improvement takes a while.
Trust Password : "But not as sticky as two summers ago."
Tuxedo and Martini : When turning down the assignment, Annibal suggests to Shaw that James Bond would be a more appropriate recruit. In the next scene, Annibal and his wife go to a Navy ball and run into Shaw wearing a tux.
Uriah Gambit : The Plan is to frame Carlos as a paid informant for the CIA, so he will be killed by the KGB.
Wax On, Wax Off : Played with; Annibal is given exercises to improve his memory, driving, situational analysis and shooting skills, but the plan itself is only explained to him once he's reached a certain level of proficiency. Meanwhile he's fed porridge (and nothing else) until he's sick of it and losing weight. He has Amos blowing cigar smoke in his face , and Shaw trying to run him over with remote-controlled snowmobiles. Turns out the purpose is to Teach Him Anger ; not only his own but that of his target — Carlos grew up eating the same porridge and tells everyone he meets how much he hated it and the smell of his father's cigars. He was also underfed as a child and clumsy at sports, feelings that Annibal can now empathise with .
As the commandos are climbing the walls, their boss turns up at the gate as if for a routine visit. As he leaves his car and goes over to the gatehouse, a commando shoots the guard with a silenced pistol and the KGB boss continues inside without breaking stride .
A KGB commando raps on the window. As the terrorists inside grab their guns and turn to the window to fire, other commandos hiding by the door shoot them In the Back .
On being confronted by the KGB who order him to get dressed and come with them for interrogation, Carlos does so while contemptuously throwing ladies underwear in their faces...then grabbing a submachine gun hidden under the clothes.
Annibal spends most of the Chase Scene in a blood-splattered white shirt after he Boom Headshots a man at point-blank range.
Carlos later shoots a minion he believes is an informer, with the exit wound appearing on a white undershirt.
Woman Scorned : Carla is helping the Israelis kill Carlos because her former lover set her up to be killed by carrying a bomb onto an airplane .
You Can Never Leave : Having put so much work into Annibal, Shaw is not going to let him walk away from the mission. He's even willing to use Annibal's family as The Bait to lure Carlos if that's what it takes.
Your Approval Fills Me with Shame : Shaw: The French made it perfect for us. The KGB now think you're Carlos. They took the bait! Annibal: You fucking maniac . Jack, I-killed-four-men! (as Jack looks away) HEY, I DON'T LIKE KILLING OUR FUCKING ALLIES, ALL RIGHT? Amos: Policemen wind up killing other policemen. It happens. I'd rather have you here feeling guilty about them than to know that there's some meeting in Paris with them all sitting around feeling guilty about you. Shaw: You did what you had to do, and it worked. Carlos himself couldn't have done any better.
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THE ASSIGNMENT

"tracking a terrorist".

What You Need To Know:

(Pa, Ro, LL, VVV, NN, SS, A, D, M) Pagan, romantic worldview; 20 total obscenities & profanities; excessive violence including shooting & explosions with bloodletting; depicted & implied fornication & one scene of marital intercourse; alcohol use; smoking & drug use; and corruption

More Detail:

THE ASSIGNMENT opens with a squalid scene of a little boy relieving himself in a street to the sounds of lovemaking. Nude Carlos (Aidan Quinn) looks out a shabby window and tells a naked woman to get lost as he burns a spider in its web with the end of his cigarette. He puts on a disguise, then enters a French café, where he greets CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) just before he throws a grenade, which kills and maims innocent men, women, and children. Shaw realizes that the man who greeted him was the notorious Carlos.

Long, unkempt hair, Carlos interrupts an OPEC meeting at its ornate headquarters and holds the Arab delegates hostage until he gets a $20 million in ransom. Jack Shaw strenuously objects to giving into Carlos’ demands and recommends that the CIA kill the terrorist once and for all when they encounter him at the Paris airport just before Carlos boards his plane. Shaw’s boss interrupts the assassination of the killer and reminds Shaw that the United States does not officially assassinate people.

Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn), a Navy lieutenant who bears a striking resemblance to Carlos wanders through an Israeli market on shore leave. A group of Israeli-looking men give chase, and Ramirez flees, running into a crowded market stall, where he is jumped, beaten and thrown into jail. Israeli Intelligence Officer, Amos (Ben Kingsley), a MOSSAD agent, is convinced he has found Carlos, but, during the interrogation, Amos realizes his mistake and releases a very angry Ramirez, who vows to sue him.

Realizing the strategic value of Ramirez’s cooperation, Shaw immediately seizes the opportunity to conscript Ramirez into CIA service to capture Carlos. He trains for months without knowing exactly what the operation is. After repeated objections, Shaw finally persuades Ramirez to join the fight after he shows him pictures of the young boys Carlos killed. Then, Shaw tells Ramirez that he must commit adultery and possibly murder others in order to snare this terrorist. Shaw tells Ramirez that he has to adopt Carlos’ mindset in order to survive, and he does.

Shaw plans to convince the KGB that Carlos has defected to the CIA in order that the KGB will kill him themselves. Because a French counter-terrorism operation goes wrong, Ramirez ends up committing adultery and killing French operatives. He returns to his family in Virginia and kills an over-zealous little league father in a spat. Angry and bitter, Ramirez realizes that he has become almost as evil as Carlos. His wife knows something is changed. He confesses to her that he has had another woman and has killed men in the service of his country.

Shaw pursues another plan to capture Carlos and conscripts Ramirez once again, this time threatening his family. The result has an interesting twist. In the end, Ramirez stares out a window and burns a spider in a web, indicating that Carlos’ evil has possessed Ramirez, perhaps forever.

The theme of the movie is that all intelligence organizations are deceitful, and the CIA and the MOSSAD are just as ugly and evil as the international terrorists against whom they fight. Quinn does a good job of rendering the dilemma of the double-minded man, torn between his desire to serve his country, and to love his family.

With good production values and superb acting, THE ASSIGNMENT communicates the message that the only way man can defeat evil is with more evil. This message is cynical and anti-Christian. Jesus Christ defeated evil on the Cross (Colossians 2:15), and He didn’t use more evil. He offered Himself, the Sinless One, as the only atonement for sin and evil. Jesus defeated evil once and for all time with good.

THE ASSIGNMENT opens with lewd images, apt images for a movie which exposes the truth that the world, without God, is evil and unsafe. The tragedy of this movie is that there is a deeper truth − there is a God who has defeated evil with good.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

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‘I’m not Black; I’m O.J.’: Why Simpson avoided athlete activism

O.J. Simpson’s ascent to fame, before that infamous double-murder trial, could be summed up in five words: “I’m not Black; I’m O.J.”

Those were Simpson’s words, said in response to civil rights activist and sociologist Harry Edwards in the late 1960s, when Edwards was recruiting Simpson — who at the time was a renowned two-sport athlete at USC — to participate in the Olympic Project for Human Rights. Simpson wanted no part of activism then and certainly not when he won the Heisman Trophy two months after John Carlos and Tommie Smith took up the fight , raising their fists on the 200-meter medal podium during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City in protest of the mistreatment of Black people in America.

In acclaimed 2016 documentary “ O.J.: Made In America ,” Edwards explained Simpson’s reasoning for that stance, which took place during a tumultuous period of American history in which Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and Muhammad Ali’s protest of the Vietnam War saw him stripped of his heavyweight boxing title and his freedom jeopardized.

“O.J. was saying: ‘I want to be judged, not by the color of my skin. I want to be judged by the content of my character and, most of all, the caliber of my competence,’ ” Edwards said in the film. “ ‘I think I’m the greatest football player that this country has ever seen, and that’s all I want to be judged by. Don’t tell me I’ve got to do this because I’m Black.’ ”

If anything, Simpson’s Blackness was something to be bartered — in exchange for wealth, for the fumes of White privilege and celebrity worship, for an escape from the realities he faced while growing up in the Potrero projects of San Francisco. His Blackness wasn’t supposed to be thrown in anyone’s face, to make the people who were cheering for him feel guilt for the indignities experienced in America by the people who looked like him. Mostly, his Blackness was to be avoided.

“For a lot of people who wanted to believe that they could applaud a successful athlete and not have to deal with any sort of racial politics, O.J. was their poster child,” Todd Boyd, USC professor and endowed chair for the study of race and popular culture, said in a telephone interview Thursday, after Simpson’s death at 76 of prostate cancer was announced by his family.

Simpson was the first post-civil rights sports icon. “A counterrevolutionary hero,” Boyd said. It wasn’t simply because of the talent that propelled him during that Heisman-winning campaign or in 1973 when he rushed for 2,003 yards for the Buffalo Bills. It was his smile, his laugh, his charm — all on display during television appearances and as he chased down Hertz rental cars in commercials to cheers of “Go, O.J.! Go!” It was the fact that he made White fans feel comfortable.

His decision to refrain from taking a stand on civil rights stood in sharp contrast to many star athletes of his era. Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar comported themselves as if they believed activism was a necessary part of the assignment. Simpson sought social status over social justice.

In explaining his refusal to participate in the protest that Smith and Carlos engaged, Simpson spoke of the negative backlash they received, how it damaged their ability to profit from their success. He added, in an interview included in the “Made In America” documentary, “If I stand on a platform, I’m going to be speaking for O.J.”

Abdul-Jabbar, whose star turn at UCLA overlapped with Simpson’s time at USC, expressed Thursday night on social media his disappointment in Simpson’s approach. “Every Black celebrity knows that, whether they like it or not, they represent the entire Black community,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote. “Sadly, despite admirable accomplishments as an athlete, OJ Simpson was not able to live up to that responsibility. His life is a reminder of how quickly one’s legacy can crash and burn.”

Simpson put himself ahead of any movement or cause, changing the outlook for another generation of Black athletes who didn’t want to lose out on the money and professional opportunities that could come their way by speaking out against inequities and injustice.

“In a lot of ways, he was the ultimate individual, and America has always rewarded individuals,” Boyd said. “It’s when individuals identify with a group that things can become difficult.”

Simpson’s fall from grace remains startling because the plummet was so precipitous. The heights Simpson reached as a celebrity athlete, turned pitchman, turned broadcaster, turned movie star and then the depths to which his reputation sunk as a murder suspect were unfathomable. Where he was once loved, Simpson became hated and was never welcomed back, even after his acquittal in 1995 of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman.

“It’s hard for a lot of people to remember who he was before the murder charges,” Boyd said. “He was not a hated figure. Maybe some Black people said he had sold the community out. Maybe. But I don’t know that people hated him. Maybe they were indifferent to him. But he was successful, and he influenced others. If you’re a young Black athlete, why wouldn’t you want to emulate what he had done?”

Interest in Simpson experienced a resurgence in 2016 with the FX series “ The People vs O.J. Simpson ,” starring Cuba Gooding Jr., and the “Made In America” documentary. That same year, Ali died and NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protest of police brutality and racial discrimination became the most prominent example of modern athlete activism. In capturing the moment, Jay-Z released the Grammy-nominated song “The Story of O.J.” in 2017 and introduced Simpson’s famous words to a younger audience with a rhyme: “I’m not Black; I’m O.J. . . . OK.”

“O.J., to me, was always a hustler at a high level,” Boyd said. That hustle, he said, wasn’t geared toward the Black community, because it could “see right through him” and there was nothing to be gained from there. But White America “thought he was someone that ultimately he was not. For lack of a better phrase, they thought he was a good [n-word].”

Simpson might have been a mediocre actor, Boyd said, but he was superb in the role of O.J. — until his downfall revealed a different picture from the one that played for the cameras.

“It’s not a secret,” Boyd said. “O.J. is about O.J. — trying to do for self at the expense of everybody else.”

The Assignment (1997)

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StarTribune

Who replaces carlos correa at shortstop twins look at willi castro, kyle farmer..

BALTIMORE – Carlos Correa was in the Twins lineup as starting shortstop 134 times in 2023. In 27 of the 28 games he missed, Kyle Farmer handled the position. Willi Castro started there only once.

So it was notable in Detroit over the weekend that the Twins' starting shortstop in the three games after Correa injured an intercostal muscle was Castro, with Farmer serving as third baseman in two of them.

"I haven't heard anything about [why]. I just go where they tell me," said Farmer, who with lefthander Cole Irvin on the mound for the Baltimore Orioles, made his first start of the season at shortstop Monday. "I love shortstop — it's my home away from home. But it doesn't really bother me."

Farmer, 33, has a theory, actually.

"I'm old now," he said. "So maybe it's my age or something like that. Maybe my range has gone down. They probably have some analytical numbers about that. That's probably why."

The Twins do indeed "have data on everything," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said with a smile, but that's not why he chose Castro to fill Correa's position. "It's something I thought about a lot over the winter. It feels like a small roster point, but it's something we discussed and will continue to. But they both will get playing time over there."

Baldelli made it clear that he has plenty of faith in Farmer at shortstop, that the switch had little to do with him. But Farmer was right about one thing — age is a factor.

Castro's age.

The utility specialist doesn't turn 27 until later this month, and the Twins clearly see him as a valuable backup in the infield for the next few years.

"Willi has some really good long-term potential to play that position. He hasn't played as much of it, but he's a guy who has all the tools to be a very good major league shortstop," Baldelli said. "He's got a chance to be even better, and the only way to get better is by actually playing."

Which is fine by Castro, despite the costly error he made Sunday by dropping Carson Kelly 's line drive.

"I love shortstop. It's the hardest position, but shortstop drives the bus in the infield," he said. "I like playing everywhere, but shortstop is my favorite."

Conger's blast is remembered

In the Twins' pregame hitter's meeting, the team was told that there are 122 small baseball-shaped plaques on Eutaw Street, which runs behind the right field wall in front of the iconic warehouse at Camden Yards. Each one marks the spot where a long home run landed over the ballpark's 32-year history.

And which person in this room, the players were asked, has his name on one of those plaques?

The answer, the team was told, was first base coach Hank Conger , who reached that milestone in 2013 with a 412-foot blast off Jason Hammel .

"It's actually one of my favorite swings. That one, I remember," Conger said. "When I was playing, I thought [the plaque] was cool, but when I got done playing and came back here the first time as a coach, that's when it seemed really cool. That was probably when I enjoyed seeing the plaque the most."

As Conger described that homer to reporters, Carlos Santana walked past and heard the conversation, then stopped. "I have one, too," he said. Sure enough, the Twins newcomer connected on a 424-foot homer while with Cleveland in 2011.

The only player to earn a Eutaw Street plaque while with the Twins? Justin Morneau , who hit a 412-footer on July 25, 2004, during his first trip to Camden Yards.

* Jhoan Duran will throw a second bullpen session Tuesday and, after seeing how he feels on Wednesday, the Twins will determine whether the closer is healthy enough to begin a rehabilitation assignment.

* Max Kepler will work out at Target Field on Tuesday and will run the bases to test his bruised right knee. Kepler, just 1-for-20 this season, is eligible to be activated from the injured list when the Twins return home to face Detroit on Friday.

Phil Miller has covered the Twins for the Star Tribune since 2013. Previously, he covered the University of Minnesota football team, and from 2007-09, he covered the Twins for the Pioneer Press.

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Frederick Gaudreau is the newest parent on the Minnesota Wild. “Our hearts have been exploded in the best way possible,” he said.

Gaudreau returns as a new parent for Wild, who top Kings

Twins starting pitcher Louie Varland throws during the second inning against the Orioles. Varland allowed 11 hits and six runs, though two were unearn

Varland's struggles continue as Orioles send Twins to 7th loss in 10 games • Twins
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Reusse: Payroll-cutting Twins no match for big-spending Dodgers • Twins
Scoggins: Anatomy of a game-saving play as Correa throws out Ohtani • Twins

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Twins place Carlos Correa on the 10-day injured list with an oblique injury

Home plate umpire Adam Beck signals that Minnesota Twins’ Carlos Correa has struck out during the third inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Minnesota Twins’ Carlos Correa takes a strike during the third inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

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DETROIT (AP) — Twins shortstop Carlos Correa was placed on the 10-day injured list Saturday, a day after sustaining an oblique injury in Minnesota’s 8-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers.

Correa was hitting .306 with a homer and four RBIs in 11 games and had an .876 OPS. The two-time All-Star was replaced on the 25-man roster by catcher Jair Camargo, who was hitting .268 with two homers in 11 games for Triple-A St. Paul.

Willi Castro is expected to get most of the playing time at shortstop. He is hitting .103 but got the final out Friday night after switching to the mound.

The Twins made two other roster moves on Saturday. They selected the contract of right-hander Matt Bowman from St. Paul and designated righty Michael Tonkin for assignment. Bowman pitched six scoreless relief innings in Triple-A while Tonkin struggled for both the Mets and Twins early in the season.

Minnesota also recalled righty Simeon Woods Richardson from St. Paul to serve as the 27th man in Saturday’s doubleheader. Woods Richardson, who made his major league debut at Comerica Park on Oct. 2, 2022, will face Detroit’s 27th man, righty Matt Manning, in the second game.

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Twins Place Carlos Correa On 10-Day IL, Designate Michael Tonkin

By Mark Polishuk | April 13, 2024 at 9:50am CDT

The Twins announced a set of roster moves prior to their double-header with the Tigers, including the expected news that Carlos Correa has been placed on the 10-day injured list. Right-hander Michael Tonkin has also been designated for assignment, and the Twins have filled those two open roster spots by calling catcher Jair Camargo up from Triple-A, and selecting the contract of right-hander Matt Bowman . In addition, right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson was also called up as the extra 27th man for the double-header.

Correa suffered a right oblique strain in yesterday’s game, and while he told MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park and other reporters today that MRI results hadn’t yet come back, an IL stint seemed inevitable. The question now facing Correa and the Twins is just how much time the shortstop will miss, as oblique injuries have a tendency to linger unless Correa lucked out with a very low-level strain. It seems likely that Correa will miss more than just 10 days, and since third baseman Royce Lewis is also out with a quad strain, Minnesota is suddenly rather short-handed in the infield. Utilitymen Willi Castro and Kyle Farmer were already handling the bulk of third base duties, and since one of them will now be moved over to shortstop, Jose Miranda or Austin Martin could get more looks in the infield.

Camargo is perhaps something of an unusual call-up in this context, as the Twins already have Ryan Jeffers and Christian Vazquez handling catching duties. However, if Miranda gets more time at third base, that opens up some DH at-bats to allow Jeffers and Vazquez in the lineup at the same time, with Camargo providing depth behind the plate.

When and if Camargo does get into a game, it will mark the 24-year-old’s Major League debut. An international signing for the Dodgers in 2015, he started his pro career at age 16, and has toiled away in the minors before getting his first crack at the Show. Camargo made it to Triple-A for the first time in 2023, and to date has hit .260/.328/.499 with 23 homers over 415 plate appearances at the top rung of the minor league ladder. Baseball America ranked Camargo as the 26th-best prospect in Minnesota’s farm system, citing his power, hard contact, and an above-average throwing arm as pluses. However, Camargo’s defense as a whole is average at best, and he has posted some hefty strikeout rates across his minor league career.

Tonkin finds himself back on the DFA wire just over a week after the Mets initially designated the righty. The Twins acquired Tonkin in a trade earlier this week, and he allowed two runs over two relief innings in yesterday’s 8-2 loss to Detroit. This could potentially mark Tonkin’s only appearance in his second career stint with Minnesota, unless he clears waivers and accepts an outright assignment. Since electing free agency would mean giving up what remains of his $1MM guaranteed salary from the Mets, Tonkin might decide to simply bide his time at Triple-A Saint Paul.

Speaking of guaranteed salaries, Bowman’s selection to the active roster means that the veteran reliever has now locked in $925K for 2024, as per the terms of the minors contract he signed with the Twins in January. Bowman posted a 4.02 ERA over 181 1/3 innings for the Cardinals and Reds from 2016-19 before an extended Tommy John rehab kept him from pitching at any level for the next three seasons. He finally returned to action with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate last year, and completed the comeback by tossing four innings over three MLB games for New York in September.

Bowman provides Minnesota’s pen with a fresh arm for at least today’s double-header, and perhaps for a longer stint given how seven Twins relievers are still on the injured list. Caleb Thielbar and Josh Staumont have begun Triple-A rehab assignments, while closer Jhoan Duran has started to throw bullpen sessions as he worked his way back from an oblique strain.

25 Comments

The two most major league ready bats at AAA are also hurt ( Trevor Larnach and Brooks Lee). Running out of hitting depth very quickly.

What is with this team and injuries? Do we need a new better medical staff, better training regimens or what?!

Giants med staff saw this coming.

Their concerns were over his right ankle, he has injured oblique. They are completely unrelated.

Oblique bone connected to the ankle bone. (Only works if you sing it)

To Sky: Well said!

It’s okay, most of my attempts at humor are misunderstood. Also, I wasn’t aware anyone trolling mlbtr was on staff and knew every single concern they had. /s

Twins getting decimated by injuries in the early part of the year. Somehow Bux is healthy though!

“Twins getting decimated”…It’s not exactly “news” when the PED profile, body(Correa) of another Boras client begins to break down in his late 20’s early 30’s.

Can usually y be grateful for something, unless you are the CWS or Marlins this year!

Let’s all take a moment to remember how prized and over hyped the class of 2022 free agent SS were and how out of Correa, Baez, Story, Semien and Turner only one was worth it.

Corey Seger too…out of them all Texas and Philadelphia look like they got the best deals, while Tigers, Twins and Red Sox got hosed

Twins didn’t get hosed until the following off-season. Correa was good in 2022 before opting out.

That’s true but I guess my point was that that class was praised and hyped as once in a generation SS’s never to be duplicated ect. Didn’t quite turn out that way. Like, at all

“Corey Segar too”…Corey obviously has his annual 6 week injury every year, but plays enough to lead his team to a World Series win and a top 5 MVP finish. I wouldn’t exactly include Seagar on any list of overrated shortstops. Texas probably signed the only 2 big-time middle infielders that are actually earning their salary in Marcus Semien & Corey Seagar.

It would be a “Devil and Daniel Webster” like twist if Buxton plays 150 games and the rest of the team is injured.

Shockingly obvious outcome from Minnesota Sports perspective, actually.

First Lewis out, now Correa. It’s getting late early here in Minny.

Or, it’s just getting it out of the way early, and the back half of the year will be when it’s turned on

Correa contract was bad the moment it was signed

Great take. Super insightful and on-topic.

“Great take”…Carlos Correa is an injury-prone, PED profile dog; what exactly do you want to hear? Fantasy?..fiction? Fairy tales?

20 hours ago

What do I want to hear? A take with something to back it up. Like what you did. Though I disagree for a few reasons. Small market teams have to take risks because they aren’t huge destinations. So when a superstar (who hasn’t been proven to have taken PEDs, so that’s baseless) is willing to sign, you make it happen. Just like the Buxton contract was one we had to make, I look at Correa similarly.

The article stating that Camargo has toiled away in the minors feels harsh. Also, Jair himself can DH because he’s been great at the plate last year and thus far this year – to the extent that he earned a 40 man spot last year. I guess I’m just arguing semantics. It’s so poetic that Buxton is playing CF while everyone else is injured.

Are you a poet and don’t know it!

Austin Martin now gets clear road to perform like the sports car he’s named after…

This Week in Mets: Jose Buttó makes another statement

Apr 14, 2024; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets starting pitcher Jose Butto (70) pitches against the Kansas City Royals during the first inning at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

“There is nothing nobler, stronger, healthier, and more helpful in life than a good remembrance, particularly a remembrance from our childhood, when we still lived in our parents’ house. You often hear people speak about upbringing and education, but I feel that a beautiful, holy memory preserved from early childhood can be the most important single thing in our development.” —“The Brothers Karamazov,” Fyodor Dostoevsky

On the day they honored Dwight Gooden, the Mets received their best pitching performance of the season.

Jose Buttó ’s six sparkling innings spearheaded a 2-1 rubber-game victory over the Royals . The Mets finally broke the seal on Harrison Bader ’s bases-loaded swinging bunt in the bottom of the eighth. They scored twice in the inning on that one hit, aided by four free passes from Kansas City reliever Chris Stratton . New York’s pitchers allowed three hits, with Vinny Pasquantino’s ninth-inning solo shot off Edwin Díaz the lone blemish.

It was Buttó who set the tone, and it’s Buttó whose performance is the most significant. Over six scoreless innings, he held the Royals to two hits while striking out nine. It was Buttó’s second quality start in as many tries; the rest of the rotation has one in 13 attempts.

“Today, he was in complete control,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “What a great outing.”

What a day for José Buttó 👏 pic.twitter.com/2CCjTj1PIt — New York Mets (@Mets) April 14, 2024

Buttó is in the rotation as a fill-in for the fill-in, taking the spot of Tylor Megill , who was taking the spot of Kodai Senga . It was precisely this dynamic — the early stress put on New York’s pitching depth — that undermined the Mets early in 2023 when Megill and David Peterson struggled in start after start. But Buttó’s emergence, late last season and now into this one, can help provide some stability.

Because, unlike his first start in the doubleheader against Detroit , Buttó can stick around for a while this time. That time, Buttó had to be sent back down as a 27th man not yet eligible to be promoted. Now he’s slated to stick in the rotation until Megill or Senga returns.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Mendoza said. “He’ll continue to get the ball.”

Through his first two starts of the season, Buttó has struck out 15 batters and allowed one run. He’s not the first Met to do that to begin a season, but the list is one you want to be on:

“I’m just doing my job,” said Buttó. “I just want to be ready.”

Despite a 46-minute rain delay, Buttó came out of the gate firing. He struck out the side in order in the first inning, seducing each of Kansas City’s top three hitters with a changeup that dropped off the table at the plate. He ended the day getting five of his nine punchouts and six of his 16 swings-and-misses on that change.

Buttó has become, however, more than just that changeup. He’s dabbled with a sweeper to help him against right-handed batters; last year, he posted reverse platoon splits thanks to his changeup. This season, he’s remained tough on lefties while improving against righties. Their average against him has dipped from .240 to .167 and their OPS off Buttó has fallen from .697 to .417.

The best part for Buttó? It’s not just the two starts this year. His run of strong outings dates to September of last year, when he finished the season with five good starts against quality competition.

Over his past seven major-league starts going back to last season, Buttó owns a 2.51 ERA and a WHIP under 1.000 over 39 1/3 innings. He’s struck out 43 in that stretch.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence now,” Buttó said, showing that confidence by conducting his postgame interview in English for the first time. “I’ve gotten more comfortable with all my pitches.”

The exposition

The Mets won their third straight series, taking two of three from the Royals at Citi Field. New York is 7-8 and the only National League team to play every game this season against a team currently over .500. The Mets are third in the National League East.

The Pirates drubbed the Phillies on Sunday to split a four-game series at Citizens Bank Park. Pittsburgh’s 11-5 record is still only good for second in the NL Central, percentage points behind the Brewers .

The Dodgers dropped the Sunday night rubber game from the Padres in Chavez Ravine. At 11-7, Los Angeles has a two-game lead in the NL West over San Diego. LA hosts the Nationals for three Monday through Wednesday.

The pitching possibles

v. Pittsburgh

RHP Adrian Houser (0-1, 5.40 ERA) v. LHP Martín Pérez (1-0, 1.89 ERA) LHP Jose Quintana (1-1, 3.45) v. RHP Jared Jones (1-2, 4.00) RHP Luis Severino (1-1, 3.00) v. LHP Bailey Falter (1-0, 4.20)

at Los Angeles

LHP Sean Manaea (1-1, 4.30) v. RHP Gavin Stone (1-1, 6.14) RHP Jose Buttó (0-0, 0.75) v. LHP James Paxton (2-0, 1.64) RHP Adrian Houser v. RHP Tyler Glasnow (3-0, 2.25)

Injury updates

Red = 60-day IL Orange = 15-day IL Blue = 10-day IL

• J.D. Martinez is scheduled to resume swinging the bat on Monday. He’s still a few days away, Mendoza said, from getting back into minor-league action. Martinez hasn’t played since last Saturday for Low-A St. Lucie, after which he started to feel back tightness. Martinez received a shot in his back last Tuesday.

• Kodai Senga’s placement on the 60-day IL means he can’t return until the final week of May. Senga is throwing out to 120 feet and will start playing catch from a mound imminently, Mendoza said over the weekend.

• Sean Reid-Foley started a rehab assignment with High-A Brooklyn on Sunday, striking out the side in 14 pitches.

Minor-league schedule

Triple-A: Syracuse at Charlotte (Chicago, AL) Double-A: Binghamton v. Reading (Philadelphia) High-A: Brooklyn at Jersey Shore (Philadelphia) Low-A: St. Lucie v. Tampa (New York, AL)

Last week in Mets

• What Sunday meant to Dwight Gooden • What was it like hitting against Gooden ? • Sean Manaea is honoring his late brother every time he pitches • What Carlos Mendoza ’s early changes to the lineup mean • Brett Baty is playing with joy again • The Mets are struggling to control the running game • How soon might the Mets promote a top pitching prospect ? • The breakout offensive comeback in Atlanta • TWIM : What’s concerning and what’s not in the Mets’ start

A note on the epigraph

“The Brothers Karamazov” is the best novel ever written.

Trivia time

The Mets’ record for strikeouts in consecutive games at any point in the season is owned by Dwight Gooden from 1984. How many did Gooden strike out over back-to-back games?

(Bonus points if you know which teams they were against. The hint is that the two teams reside in the same state.)

I’ll reply to the right answer(s) in the comments.

You can buy tickets to every MLB game here .

(Photo of Jose Buttó: Brad Penner / USA Today)

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Tim Britton is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the New York Mets. He has covered Major League Baseball since 2009 and the Mets since 2018. Prior to joining The Athletic, he spent seven seasons on the Red Sox beat for the Providence Journal. He has also contributed to Baseball Prospectus, NBC Sports Boston, MLB.com and Yahoo Sports. Follow Tim on Twitter @ TimBritton

Watch CBS News

Pirates let 3-0 lead slip away, fall 6-3 to Mets

April 16, 2024 / 12:29 AM EDT / AP

Harrison Bader drove in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning for the second day in a row, hitting a two-run double off an angry Aroldis Chapman that lifted the New York Mets over the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-3 on Monday night.

New York overcame a 3-0, sixth-inning deficit and reached .500 for the first time since they were 30-30 last June 6. The Mets have won eight of 11 following an 0-5 start under first-year manager Carlos Mendoza.

"It's important to continue to play well after a rough, start, but we've still got a long ways to go," Mendoza said. "I like where we are a team."

Chapman (0-1) was ejected by plate umpire Edwin Moscoso after Bader's double.

"He evidently said something that the umpire did not like," Pirates manager Derek Shelton said.

New York stole three bases in the eighth against the Pirates, who have allowed 13 steals this season without throwing out a runner.

With the score 3-all, Jeff McNeil reached on a wild pitch as Chapman bounced a slider past catcher Henry Davis. DJ Stewart, whose pinch-hit double in the sixth tied the score, held up his swing for a walk on a full-count pitch.

"Everyone can doubt us all they want," Stewart said.

McNeil and Stewart pulled off a double steal, and Bader lined a fastball into the left-field corner. His eighth-inning infield hit drove in the first run Sunday in a 2-1 win over Kansas City.

After Bader stole third, Brandon Nimmo grounded to second baseman Jared Triolo with the infield in, and Bader slid in ahead of Davis' tag.

Davis made his 13th start this season at catcher for the Pirates following injuries to Endy Rodríguez (Tommy John surgery), Yasmani Grandal (plantar fasciitis in his left foot) and Jason Delay (right knee inflammation).

Adam Ottavino (1-0) pitched the eighth with a pair of strikeouts and has retired 17 consecutive batters.

Edwin Díaz worked around a walk for his second save in two days, his 100th with the Mets. He remained perfect in four save chances in his return from a torn right patellar tendon that sidelined him for all of last season, and has converted 26 in a row dating to 2022.

A day after hitting his 300th homer, Andrew McCutchen had a go-ahead RBI single off Adrian Houser in a three-run Pirates sixth that included Connor Joe's run-scoring single off Drew Smith and Triolo's sacrifice fly. Joe's hit made him 9 for 17 this season with runners in scoring position.

New York tied the score in the bottom half. Martín Pérez walked Francisco Alvarez with the bases loaded, and Francisco Lindor scored from third when Joe spiked the ball for an error while throwing to first after McNeil's fly to right.

"Unfortunately it got away from me," Joe said.

Stewart doubled on the first pitch from rookie Hunter Stratton.

Pérez gave up three runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings, while Houser matched his career high with five walks and allowed two runs and two hits in 5 1/3 innings.

The crowd of 18,266 was the fourth under 20,000 in nine home dates this season at Citi Field.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Pirates: LHP Marco Gonzales (strained left forearm) is in Pittsburgh being evaluated. ... INF/OF Ji Hwan Bae (strained left hip) was activated from the 10-day IL and optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis after going 5 for 10 with a home run during a three-game rehab assignment with the Indians.

Mets: RHP Kodai Senga (right shoulder capsule strain) is to throw off a mound this week but to a catcher standing up.

Mets LHP Jose Quintana (1-1, 3.45 ERA) starts Tuesday night for the Mets and rookie RHP Jared Jones (1-2, 4.00) goes for the Pirates.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

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IMAGES

The Assignment (1997)
The Assignment (1997 film)
THE ASSIGNMENT (2017)
The Assignment (1997)
The Assignment (2016)
The Assignment (1997)

VIDEO

Week 1
Task: Assignment
Week 18
Task assignment 15 _ Juan Carlos Paucar Carranza
What I‘ve learned Final Assignment
Task assignment 18 _ Juan Carlos Paucar Carranza

COMMENTS

The Assignment (1997)
The Assignment: Directed by Christian Duguay. With Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Ben Kingsley, Claudia Ferri. An American naval officer is recruited for an operation to eliminate his lookalike, the infamous terrorist Carlos The Jackal.
The Assignment (1997 film)
The Assignment is a 1997 spy action thriller film directed by Christian Duguay and starring Aidan Quinn (in two roles), with Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley.The film, written by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai, is set mostly in the late 1980s and deals with a CIA plan to use Quinn's character to masquerade as the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal.
The Assignment (1997)
The plan to catch Carlos revolves around convincing the KGB, which supports much of his terrorism, that he has begun to work with the CIA. The team lures one of Carlos' girlfriends to Libya, where Ramirez meets up with her, successfully posing as Carlos, even during their lovemaking. The girlfriend has become an informant for the French, however.
The Assignment (1997)
He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez.
The Assignment
Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn) is an American naval officer who looks remarkably like notorious international assassin Carlos Sanchez (also Quinn). Veteran CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland ...
THE ASSIGNMENT
Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn). With the aid of his Israeli Intelligence counterpart, Amos (Ben Kingsley), Jack trains Annibal to impersonate Carlos through a series of harrowing physical and psychological exercises and draw the ...
The Assignment (1997)
The Assignment (1997) Aidan Quinn as Annibal Ramirez, Carlos. Menu. Movies. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. TV Shows.
The Assignment (1997)
Brief Synopsis. Read More. Cuban-American navel officer Annibal Ramirez is a dead ringer for Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez. His features are so close to those of Sanchez that he is brutally interrogated as a terrorist while on vacation in Israel. American counter-intellegence agent Jack Shaw and his Israeli counterpart Amos realize they can use ...
The Assignment
He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn).
The Assignment
Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn). With the aid of his Israeli Intelligence counterpart, Amos (Ben Kingsley), Jack trains Annibal to impersonate Carlos through a series of harrowing physical and psychological exercises and draw the ...
The Assignment movie review & film summary (1997)
The Assignment. "The Assignment'' is a canny, tricky thriller that could serve as an illustration of what this week's similar release, "The Peacemaker,'' is not. Both films involve an international hunt for a dangerous terrorist, but "The Peacemaker'' is a cartoon and "The Assignment'' is intelligent and gripping--and it has a third act!
The Assignment streaming: where to watch online?
He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez.
The Assignment
The Assignment - watch online: streaming, buy or rent . ... He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and ...
The Assignment (1997 film)
The Assignment is a 1997 spy action thriller film directed by Christian Duguay and starring Aidan Quinn , with Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley. The film, written by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai, is set mostly in the late 1980s and deals with a CIA plan to use Quinn's character to masquerade as the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal.
'The Assignment'
Underneath all this foolishness, "The Assignment" ponders some unsettling notions about revenge and the boundaries of personality. The engineer behind Annibal's impersonation is a rancid CIA officer named Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) whose obsession with eliminating Carlos has made him into a moral monster.
The Assignment
The evil Jackal is first introduced in a flashback to early 1970s Paris, where the longhaired killer Carlos (Aidan Quinn) is shown tossing a grenade into a crowded cafe. CIA operative Jack Shaw ...
"The Assignment" Trailer
The official Trailer for "The Assignment", a canadian actionthriller about the fictional hunt for the terrorist Carlos the Jackal...Der offizielle Trailer fü...
Prime Video: The Assignment
HD $3.99. Buy. HD $12.99. More purchase. options. Rentals include 30 days to start watching this video and 48 hours to finish once started. Details. An American naval officer is recruited for an operation to eliminate his lookalike, the infamous terrorist Carlos The Jackal.
The Assignment (1997) (Film)
The Assignment (1997) While on holiday in Jerusalem in 1986, a Cuban-American naval officer called Annibal Ramirez is detained and roughed up by Israeli intelligence officer Amos (played by Ben Kingsley ). Turns out Annibal is the spitting image of 'Carlos the Jackal' Sanchez, the infamous Venezuelan terrorist who has evaded every attempt to ...
THE ASSIGNMENT
In THE ASSIGNMENT, Aidan Quinn plays Annibal Ramirez, a harassed Navy Lieutenant whom devious CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) presses into service to capture the world's most elusive terrorist, Carlos (also Aidan Quinn). Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn) is a Navy lieutenant who bears a striking resemblance to Carlos.
Carlos the Jackal
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (Spanish: [iˈlitʃ raˈmiɾes ˈsantʃes]; born 12 October 1949), also known as Carlos the Jackal (Spanish: Carlos el Chacal) or simply Carlos, is a Venezuelan who conducted a series of assassinations and terrorist bombings from 1973 to 1985.A committed Marxist-Leninist, Ramírez Sánchez was one of the most notorious political terrorists of his era, protected and ...
Opinion: The day of the Columbia disaster still haunts me
Sandy Anderson, widow of Space Shuttle Columbia's Michael P. Anderson, is comforted by astronaut Carlos Noriega during the annual Day of Remembrance ceremony at the Johnson Space Center's ...
Why O.J. Simpson avoided the athlete activism of his peers
Why Simpson avoided athlete activism. By Michael Lee. April 13, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT. On Dec. 16, 1979, O.J. Simpson is escorted from the field by police after the final NFL game of his career ...
The Assignment (1997)
The Assignment is an outstanding thriller with several plot twists driven by character, rather than star turns, the need to stage special effects, obligatory romance, and endless car chases. ... into taking on the assignment of posing as Carlos and setting him up as a traitor in the eyes of the KGB. Ramirez is apparently physically identical to ...
Who replaces Carlos Correa at shortstop? Twins look at Willi Castro
BALTIMORE - Carlos Correa was in the Twins lineup as starting shortstop 134 times in 2023. In 27 of the 28 games he missed, Kyle Farmer handled the position. Willi Castro started there only once.
Twins place Carlos Correa on the 10-day injured list with an oblique
DETROIT (AP) — Twins shortstop Carlos Correa was placed on the 10-day injured list Saturday, a day after sustaining an oblique injury in Minnesota's 8-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers. Correa was hitting .306 with a homer and four RBIs in 11 games and had an .876 OPS. The two-time All-Star was replaced on the 25-man roster by catcher Jair ...
Twins Place Carlos Correa On 10-Day IL, Designate Michael Tonkin
The Twins announced a set of roster moves prior to their double-header with the Tigers, including the expected news that Carlos Correa has been placed on the 10-day injured list. Right-hander ...
This Week in Mets: Jose Buttó makes another statement
Jose Buttó 's six sparkling innings spearheaded a 2-1 rubber-game victory over the Royals. The Mets finally broke the seal on Harrison Bader 's bases-loaded swinging bunt in the bottom of the ...
Pirates let 3-0 lead slip away, fall 6-3 to Mets
The Mets have won eight of 11 following an 0-5 start under first-year manager Carlos Mendoza. ... Indianapolis after going 5 for 10 with a home run during a three-game rehab assignment with the ...
Carlos Correa exits game with mild right intercostal strain
This time, it was Carlos Correa, who was diagnosed on Saturday with a mild right intercostal strain after he struck out on a check swing in the third inning of Friday's series-opening 8-2 loss against the Tigers, clutched his right side and immediately exited the game -- and considering both the state of the health and productivity of this Minnesota offense, a Correa injury was the last ...

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The Assignment (1997)

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This Week in Mets: Jose Buttó makes another statement

The exposition

The pitching possibles

Injury updates

Minor-league schedule

Last week in Mets

A note on the epigraph

Trivia time