Camille Delamarre’s “Assassin Club” (2023) is an action thriller dealing with a world of assassins and contract killers, where a professional hitman named Morgan Gaines (Henry Golding) is tasked to hit six high-value targets for a million dollars each, but what he does not know is that his targets are themselves assassins who have been given the same job, and he is on their kill list. Morgan’s life comes crashing down as the secrets are slowly divulged, and an unknown assassin threatens to kill the only person he cares about, his girlfriend, Sophie. Although the film has received mixed reviews owing to its somewhat unoriginal storyline and loose plot construction, it does feature some good old-fashioned action sequences combined with Noomi Rapace’s vivacious portrayal of the vicious assassin Falk. Officially released on February 2 in Italy, the film stars Henry Golding, Noomi Rapace, Sam Neill, Daniela Melchior, Anastasia Doaga, Claudio del Falco, Bruno Bilotta, and Jimmy Jean-Louis.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Assassin Club’ Story
The film begins in Prague, where an unknown assassin kills Czech gas production mogul Yakov Ilych at his home and gravely injures his young daughter, Jonna. While escaping, the assassin cuts off Ilych’s ring finger and takes it as a souvenir. Seven years later, another assassin named Morgan was tasked with killing a human trafficker called Luka Lesek in Ljubljana, Slovenia. But as he gets ready to take his shot from a distance, a hidden sniper shoots him and kills his target. Bleeding and in need of urgent care, he scrambles out of the building by lighting smoke grenades at the police and escapes in a stolen car. His handler, Caldwell, informs him about another high-paying job offer, which Morgan initially refuses, saying he is too old for the job, but Caldwell later convinces him to follow through on it. Back home in Rome, Morgan lives with his girlfriend, Sophie, who is a school teacher. Caldwell reveals the offer that he had received from a client, saying he would have to kill six targets, and for it, he would be paid a million dollars for each of the hits. Although Morgan wants out of the game, Caldwell keeps insisting that the amount of money being offered should be enough to motivate him into taking the job. While out on a date with his girlfriend, Morgan is attacked by an assassin disguised as a beggar, and he is forced to kill him in front of Sophie, which scares her. Enraged by the incident, Morgan pays Caldwell a visit, demanding answers. Under pressure, Caldwell reveals that the attacker, Alec Drakos, was, in fact, one of the targets that he was supposed to kill, and since he had done the job, he would be paid for it, but he had to kill the five others as well because they would be coming after him. Meanwhile, another mysterious assassin by the name of Falk is also on the prowl in Bosnia, as she ruthlessly kills one of the assassins on the hit list.
Falk gets in contact with Morgan, telling him that if one of them did manage to kill the rest of the assassins, they would not be allowed to enjoy the riches that they have acquired but would be hunted down as well. Therefore, she offers him an opportunity to work with her to find out who hired them and kill them to ensure their safety. As a ‘parting gift,’ she offers him the location of the next target, but suspecting she has an agenda, he does not trust her and researches the identities of the assassins. To his surprise, he finds out that Caldwell had lied to him about Alec Drakos, who was actually a Royal Marine sniper, like Morgan, and that Caldwell was his handler as well. Feeling betrayed by the man he had once considered to be the closest thing to a father, Morgan threatens to kill him if he doesn’t tell him the truth. He warns him that Falk had reached him on his burner phone and that she would be coming after him, and when she was done with him, she would inevitably kill Caldwell. Falk turns out to be hiding in plain sight under the disguise of a French intelligence special agent, Vos, and when Morgan calls her to find out what she knew about the hits, she reveals that it all may be linked to the Ilych family, who were gas-production moguls. Mariusz Ilych had hired an assassin to kill his brother Yakov seven years ago so he could take over his business, and now he may be trying to get rid of all loose ends by setting assassins against each other to avoid getting his hands dirty.
‘Assassin Club’ Ending
After Morgan finds his next target in Barcelona, he is faced with a choice to either kill him or let him live, and he chooses the latter, as he sees that he has a little daughter, but he cuts off a finger of his to convince the client that the job was done. On the other end, Falk finds Caldwell and injects him with a toxin to force him to hand over Morgan’s personal files to her, and in their conversation, it is revealed that Falk, whose real name was Vicky, was actually a protege of Caldwell just like Morgan. Falk brutally kills Caldwell and escapes with Morgan’s personal file. After Morgan realizes that Caldwell is dead, he gets a call from Falk telling him that she has arranged for an assassin named Ryder to go after his girlfriend, Sophie. While on his way back to Rome, Sophie is attacked by Ryder at her school, but she manages to escape to Morgan’s safe house. When he finally gets back, Morgan reveals his true identity to her and tells her that she has changed his life, but she informs him that she is pregnant. After arranging for a safe transport to her mother’s house, Morgan goes after Ryder and kills him, but that is exactly what Falk had planned. She orchestrates a police raid to take down Morgan, but after a few blasted bombs and a long car chase, Morgan escapes in a stolen ambulance. He uses Inspector Leon, a French police officer formerly working for Falk, to lure her into the morgue but fails to finish the job as the police intervene.
Morgan visits Jonna Ilych, daughter of the deceased Yakov, to get to the bottom of the hit order, and she tells him that she had arranged for the money to stop her uncle Mariusz and to orchestrate the arrest of the assassins he had hired, oblivious of the fact that it was Agent Vos, aka Falk, who was using her for her own interests. Morgan tells her that it was Falk who had killed her father and was now trying to get rid of all evidence in fear of being exposed by killing off all the assassins, including Jonna and her uncle. Assuming Falk is dead, Morgan asks Sophie to return home, but Falk uses the opportunity to her advantage and takes her hostage in her apartment. She had tied her up in the bathtub and planted a bomb in the apartment, giving Morgan a choice between Sophie’s life and his own. However, Inspector Leon arrives just in time and tries to apprehend Falk, but he is shot. With his dying breath, he saves Sophie’s life as Morgan waits for the bomb to power down. Once Sophie is secure, he goes after Falk and shoots her on the street as an act of vengeance. The film wraps up with a scene featuring Morgan and Sophie riding a sports car through a romantic European countryside; meanwhile, Falk is revealed to still be alive as she is shown slowly opening her eyes, lying on an unknown hospital bed.