The Assignment

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. Plot Carlos the Jackal has sex and kills a spider in its web with his cigarette then evicts the woman from his room. He dons a disguise and walks to a cafe where CIA agent Henry Fields (Donald Sutherland) is sitting at a table. He recognizes Fields and asks for a light but Fields does not recognize Carlos, because of his disguise. He watches as Carlos detonates a grenade, killing dozens of people. The next year, the Jackal attacks an OPEC meeting to earn a ransom. The CIA sends Fields to identify Carlos, where he secretly plans to assassinate him with a concealed pistol. The plan is foiled when his CIA superior stops him from reaching out to shake Carlos' hand because he might be photographed doing so by nearby journalists. In 1986 Carlos is apparently apprehended in an open-air market in Jerusalem and brutally interrogated by a Mossad commander named Amos (Ben Kingsley). The man claims to actually be a US naval officer named Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn) whose identification was lost in the chaos of his arrest. Amos confirms his identity and lets him go, stunned that Ramirez looks exactly like Carlos. Back at home, Ramirez is visited by Fields (now using the name Jack Shaw) who tries to recruit him to impersonate the terrorist leader. Ramirez refuses.