Carlos "the Jackal" has been the subject of many interesting tales... two of them movies I havn't seen -- the most recent being Jackal (1997) with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere. The Assignment is another story about the Jackal, the most ruthless terrorist in history. This time, the big names aren't so big, but the story and acting are surely impressive.
This exploration of the Jackal mythos is of a US Marine Annibal Ramirez (played by Aidan Quinn) who happens to look remarkebly like Carlos the Jackal. He is contacted by a fully covert international operation set on bringing the Jackal down to act as the Jackal. The plan, constructed by Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) and Amos (Ben Kingsly), involves training Ramirez to act exactly as Carlos would act, and to ultimately set it up so that Carlos would seem to be a traitor to the Russian government (who the Jackal commissioned himself to quite frequently) and then they would hunt him down and kill him.
The film explores the motivation of Jack Shaw, his background, and why he is so determined to see Carlos dead. It explores the relationship between trainer and subject as Amos teaches Ramirez to be the Jackal, and ultimately how Amos' death affects Annibal. And, most interesting, it explores Annibal's decent into an almost schizophrenic personality, unsure of who he really is and whether he is the evil Jackal.
The training seminars are perhaps the most interesting and involved points of the film, the climax who's who dual between Carlos and Ramirez coming a close second. The film is shot in a very interesting manner, reminiscent of a cross between intense 'Nam dramas like Platoon, and high adventure films like Indiana Jones.
The acting is fantastic, Kingsly and Sutherland as great in this as they are in every film they are in. Quinn also puts in an excellent dual performance (most of it as one person), and the three actors respond well to each other.
Surprisingly this film never saw theatrical release (that I'm aware of anyways), likely being overshadowed by the other Jackal film mentioned above... although I'm sure this one's much better.