Assassin

Bruce Willis' final film isn't bright, but it's not as bleak as some of his other recent offerings.

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A lot of movies that have come out within the last year or so have claimed to contain Bruce Willis’ last performance. They didn’t. Willis’ real deal final turn is featured in “Assassin” (available in select theaters and on VOD beginning Friday, March 31). The sci-fi thriller isn’t the brightest way for the big screen legend’s career to go out nor is it as bleak as some of his weaker offerings from the past few years.

Alexa (Nomzamo Mbatha, “Coming 2 America”) is a military veteran whose drone pilot husband Sebastian (Mustafa Shakir, he was Bushmaster on Netflix’s “Luke Cage”) is in a coma after a botched, experimental mission headed by Valmora (Willis).

Alexa questions how Sebastian became incapacitated … turns out he was piloting a different sort of drone. Valmora, tech whiz Marko (actor/producer Barry Jay Minoff) and scientist Olivia (Fernanda Andrade, late of Showtime’s “Let the Right One In” series) have developed a technology wherein users have a microchip implanted in their neck, don a wetsuit, get into a bathtub full of ice and copper wiring and are magically transported into another person’s person to enact hits on undesirables.

One such undesirable is criminal mastermind Adrian (Dominic Purcell), who happens to be the individual responsible for placing Sebastian in a coma. Alexa enters the body of artist Mali (Andy Allo of Amazon Prime’s “Upload”) in order to gain access to collector Adrian, his compound, answers, vengeance, etc.

“Assassin” is the feature debut of Jesse Atlas, who expands upon his 2017 short “Let Them Die Like Lovers” with co-writer Aaron Wolfe. Despite the short predating it by three years, “Assassin” reminded me – conceptually at least – a good deal of Brandon Cronenberg’s 2020 sci-fi mindfuck “Possessor” … only minus that picture’s nerve and verve. I understand this was a low-budget production, but the genre trappings feel more Home Depot and less world of tomorrow. The movie is a mere 88 minutes, but it feels far longer.

Mbatha and Allo likely give the film’s best performances, but they’re honestly nothing to write home about. Purcell, an actor I’ve enjoyed greatly on television shows such as “Prison Break” and “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” doesn’t translate as well to movies (see “Blade: Trinity” as evidence). He’s so-so here. Willis is impressively engaged in certain sequences and understandably disengaged in others. Honestly, the flick’s strongest asset is a Wu-Tang Clan t-shirt shared between Alexa and Sebastian … not exactly a glowing endorsement.

When it comes to Willis I’ll think less of these past few years and more of “Die Hard,” “Die Hard 2,” “The Last Boy Scout,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Nobody’s Fool,” “Die Hard with a Vengeance,” “12 Monkeys,” “The Fifth Element,” “Armageddon,” “The Sixth Sense,” “The Whole Nine Yards,” “Unbreakable,” “Sin City,” “Lucky Number Slevin,” “Live Free or Die Hard,” “RED,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Looper.” Thanks for the memories, Bruno.