I very much prefer this film to Mr. Duvall's film "The Apostle" because this film is straightforward and unpretentious in a way the other film is not. The celebration of the tango remains the core of the film but the assassination subplot works well enough to entertain viewers and give the work coherence.Apparently, this is a small film but a master made it. The cinematography is lovely and never draws attention to itself as such. Watching the famous dancers featured here delights the viewer. The locations are authentic but dreamlike sometimes. The music is, of course, perfect. For what it is, this is a masterwork and well worth viewing and celebrating.

I have a huge respect for Robert Duvall. We've had the luck of watching his career - from The God Father to The Great Zantini, to The Apostle. Here is is the star, film script author and director and it is obviously a work of great love. You can feel how much he appreciates the art of tango, not just tango but going to the root of tango, going to Argentina for the 'real thing' how wonderful. The film has a gentleness, even though it is a thriller, it has a rhythm, a sensuality because it centers around the beautiful movement of the tango. The dancing is gorgeous - and reminds me in part of TANGO by Carlos Saura and of course Sally Potter's THE TANGO LESSON. This film belongs to that category of art films based on the tango.Congratulations to Robert Duvall and to Executive Producer, Francis Ford Coppola for bringing this film to the screen. Enjoy

Robert Duvall made two mistakes in making Assassination Tango. First, he hired the wrong director. So watch this some evening on the IFC channel and imagine Woody Allen behind the script and the camera.Really, people, it has the classic Woody elements: an older, ratty-looking leading man; way younger hot women as romantic interests; and barely suppressed angst.Oh, yeah...the second mistake: Duvall gives up the story in the title. So after viewing this film, compare it to his work and make up your own tag. How about Invasion of the Tango Snatchers?One more observation: Manuela, the tango teacher, is played by Duvall's wife, Luciana Pedraza. Never direct your wife in a movie, or her ass might look big as it does in some tango shots.

Robert Duvall has turned in such interesting performances in films like "The Godfather," "M*A*S*H", and "True Grit" that "Assassination Tango" comes across as a disappointment. The plot, the direction, and the performances are weaker than we might have hoped.As an actor, Duvall lapses into too many of his familiar arid chuckles. He whooshes when he's out of breath, which is okay, but then he talks to himself in order to let us, the viewers, know what his character is thinking.The other performers, with one exception, seem as if they'd been recruited from among a crowd of extras with more attention being paid to appearance than to thespian skills.As a director, Duvall aims at a kind of street-level realism that winds up as what can only be called simulated vernacular. Actors repeat their lines. Not just something like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute," but, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute." Some of the banter sounds embarrassingly spontaneous, as in some of Casavetes' work. It isn't that Duvall doesn't expose himself to risks -- he doffs his shirt and murders several strangers without blinking -- but it's just that the risks don't pay off.Maybe it would be better if the dragged-out plot had the sinuosity and precision of the dance interludes. There's no particular reason for Duvall's developing obsession with the tango. It's just flatly there, as is his friendship and tentative amor with one of the dancers, Luciana Pedraza. And yet an emotional involvement with the dance is understandable enough. What elegance! If anyone thinks of the tango at all, the notion is likely to evoke an image out of "Some Like It Hot." Joe E. Brown and Jack Lemon (in drag) snapping around one way, then the other, switching a rose back and forth between their teeth. But the real tango is different. (Cf., Saura's "Tango".) The dancers clasp each other and seem glued together from the neck up while their torsos and legs execute these unimaginably complicated maneuvers beneath them and carry them around on the dance floor. One false move and they'd both be flat on their backs. (Come on, babuh, let's do da twist?)There is one outstanding performance in the film and that is Pedraza's. We first see her as Duvall does, when witnessing his first tango. She is dancing on stage with a partner, her shimmering black hair pulled back in a severe bun (?), a captivating, almost hallucinatory hologram of femininity.Afterward, when she takes her seat at the table with some friends, Duvall signals her from across the room. A friend brings this to her attention and she turns her face to squint at him through the smoke. If one is expecting a staggering young beauty, one will be disappointed. This is a thirtyish woman with a small dimpled chin and slightly flaring ears. But her stare is filled with curiosity, understanding, and warmth. Que mujer! Her performance has the faux spontaneous quality of most of the other actors but at times she manages to succeed in convincing us that this is the sort of voice you might hear across from you in a café -- ordinary, except for a certain insidious Spanish accent that causes her voice to undulate in unexpected directions, the way her feet slither and glide across the dance floor.You don't really get to learn much about the tango, and I'm not certain just how professional the dancers are because I know nothing of the dance form myself. The assassination is unpleasant, although we keep hoping that Duvall gets away with it. (He does.) The movie ends happily with Duvall back in New York with his girl friend and her child, and it leaves us wondering what the point of it all was.