Lessons for an Assassin
2001; directed by James Dudelson

Lessons for an Assassin's cover boldly proclaims that "Bruce Lee's legacy lives on" with this movie. Since it stars his daughter, Shannon, who I enjoyed in Enter The Eagles, I popped in the tape into my VCR -- yeah, that's right kiddies, I'm kicking it old-school here -- hoping for some decent brainless action. Boy, was I wrong.

Lessons for an Assassin would be barely passable as late night insomniac/drunken random cable movie fare if it actually had some action in it. Instead, most of the film wastes time in boring training sequences where a random white guy named Gavin (Robert Vitelli, who is also the movie's executive producer) learns how to be a badass from "The Corporation", an assassin training facility run by the mysterious Quinn, who is played by Michael Dorn. I guess those The Next Generation residuals weren't paying the bills.

Anyway, after a bunch of scenes where Gavin tries to be a tough guy by showing off his cool barbed-wire tattoos and chain-smoking cigs, he teams up with one of his teachers, Fiona (Shannon Lee) after learning The Corporation is a front for drug companies to get revenge... or is The Corporation simply a killing simulation for bored rich guys? Whatever. Who the hell cares? It's all just a bad rip-off of La Femme Nikita and pulled off with none of the style or excitement of Luc Besson's cult classic.

All of the "action" featured, what little of it there is, is co-ordinated so half-assedly that it fails to generate any sort of excitement. The gimmicks include nunchakus that can be seemingly pulled out at a moment's notice from a pair of Doc Martens, and dual-fisted Uzi shooting from the plush leathery comfort of a swiveling office chair. It might have been entertaining in a cheesy over-the-top way if it wasn't so obviously and stiffly staged. As hackey as Lo Wei's Bruce Lee movies were, at least the fight scenes were solid. You'll have no such luck here.

After recently watching the atrocious Catman in Lethal Track, Lessons for an Assassin came off as a little better -- but not by much. Where one of the highlights of a movie is seeing Dan Frischman (aka Arvid from Head of the Class and a mainstay of Nickelodeon's popular tween shows) being a sleazeball in a nudie bar, you know you're in trouble. Do yourself a favor and keep Bruce Lee's legacy afloat with some legitimacy by not wasting your time with this clunker.

RATING: 3