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Assassins
Directed by	Richard Donner
Produced by	Joel Silver
Written by	Andy Wachowski (story) Larry Wachowski (story) Brian Helgeland
Starring	Sylvester Stallone Antonio Banderas Julianne Moore
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	October 6, 1995
Running time	132 min
Language	English
Budget	$50,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

Assassins is a 1995 action film written by the Wachowski brothers and Brian Helgeland, directed by Richard Donner, and starring Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas and Julianne Moore.

Robert Rath (Stallone) is a paid assassin who wants nothing more than to get out of 'the business', haunted by the death of murdering his own mentor years ago. A quiet, morose professional, he's on an assignment to kill someone, someone else gets to the 'mark' (the target) before him. That person is Miguel Bain (Banderas), a fellow assassin and a competitive psychopath. Rath then has the trouble of trying to figure out who sent Bain, while at the same time being offered a job that could financially allow him to retire - killing the customers of a computer hacker named Electra (Moore) and retrieving her alive along with a disk that contains sensitive information. Electra has a voyeuristic fetish, she set up cameras in her neighbor's apartment and watches their bedroom.

The problem is that Bain is assigned to kill Electra as well. Bain kills the customers and tries to kill Electra, but Rath comes to the rescue. His pay for the job is given to him in a briefcase -- which turns out to actually contain a bomb -- his backer tried to kill him. When this attempt fails -- along with the fact that the disc he turned over was a fake -- the backer hires Bain to terminate him. Now having become a 'mark' himself, he must try and extract enough money out of his backer so he can disappear for good, while avoiding the bloodthirsty Bain.

The original spec screenplay was written by Larry and Andy Wachowski and sold for a million dollars to producer Joel Silver around the same time he bought their script for The Matrix, also for a million dollars. The script was similar to the final product, but with a more developed love story between Rath and Electra and a briefer ending without the character of Nikolai. Joel Silver offered Richard Donner $10 million to direct, but Donner insisted the script be rewritten to tone down the violence and make the central character more sympathetic and brought in Brian Helgeland, who did a page-one rewrite and earned a co-screenwriter credit. The Wachowskis attempted to remove their name from the film but were refused by the Writers Guild of America [1]. Later, after watching Bound, Joel Silver apologized to the brothers over Assassins and offered them the chance to direct their script The Matrix.

Sean Connery, Michael Douglas and Arnold Schwarzenegger were all considered for the part of Robert Rath. Christian Slater and Tom Cruise were offered the part of Miguel Bain.

The movie was shot entirely in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett metropolitan area (The Puget Sound Region) of Washington State except the ending scenes in which the movie is shot in Puerto Rico. It features a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) procession crossing the streets of San Juan. This procession is mainly a Mexican tradition and is not celebrated in Puerto Rico. The movie also featured several local actors, such as Axel Anderson and Juan Manuel Lebron playing bit parts.

The Banco de Puerto Rico building featured in the movie is actually a historic casino which was previously featured in the film La Gran Fiesta.

A few years after the release, Richard Donner admitted that if he had to make the film again, he would've stuck closer to the Wachowski's original script and swapped the main leads, so that Stallone would be the reckless killer and Banderas would star as the experienced pro.

The film has garnered criticism over the years amongst Conservatives and gun right's activists who took exception for various shots in the film where NRA is clearly seen in a circle with a slash through it on a city bus not once but twice in the film. The first scene has Banderas in a taxi cab driven by Stallone being crushed between the cab and a city bus as he tries to shoot Stallone from the passenger window. Banderas loses his weapon at the same time the anti-NRA sign is seen.

Later on Moore is seen running to what is the same city bus this time forgetting her cat "Pearl" with the anti-NRA sign visible again.

The film also was used as a vehicle for another liberal cause such as animal rights activisim when Moore spray paints the same circle with a slash over a wealthy woman's coat in an elevator at the Seattle Marriott.

• Sylvester Stallone ... Robert Rath
• Antonio Banderas ... Miguel Bain
• Julianne Moore ... Electra
• Anatoli Davydov ... Nicolai Tashlinkov
• Muse Watson ... Ketcham
• Steve Kahan ... Alan Branch
• Kai Wulff ... Remy
• Reed Diamond ... Bob
• Kelly Rowan ... Jennifer

• Assassins at the Internet Movie Database
• Original screenplay by Andy and Larry Wachowski
• Screenplay revised by Brian Helgeland