Fails the Bechdel test

The Assignment

Name: The Assignment
Released: 1997

1997. Directed by Christian Duguay, written by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

1 / 3

Fails

Yes 1. At least two women
4 women characters. 3 of them speak.
No 2. Who talk to each other
Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other.
No 3. About something besides a man
Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.

Second opinion

Not rated bechdeltest.com readers haven't rated this film.

The film

1986. In his civilian clothes while on shore leave in Jerusalem, Lieutenant Commander Annibal Ramirez of the US Navy is captured and interrogated by who he eventually learns is Mossad in a case of mistaken identity. Because of the resemblance, they believed him to be Carlos the Jackal, one of if not the most wanted and dangerous terrorist in the world. Shortly following, Henry Fields, using the alias Jack Shaw, he the Paris deputy chief of CIA counter-terrorism whose primary mission for at least the past ten years has been to get rid of Carlos in any way possible, tries to recruit Ramirez to work on a covert CIA-Mossad operation to stop Carlos' terrorist activities with the ultimate goal of Carlos' capture or death. The plan is for Ramirez to impersonate Carlos, in the process discrediting Carlos in the eyes of his current KGB backers, and thus effectively ending his career as a terrorist, with nowhere he can longer hide. After an initial reluctance on Ramirez's part, Shaw is able to convince him to do the job. The rigorous training is to ensure that Ramirez not only looks like Carlos, but instinctively behaves like Carlos, even to those closest to him, which also means how he makes love as one of Ramirez's interactions is to be with one of Carlos' old girlfriends. Beyond the potential problem of getting caught by Carlos or his associates, Ramirez may have problems stomaching his work and reconciling it with his real life as a military man. If he is able to carry out the mission and survive, the bigger question becomes whether being Carlos will have transformed his inherent being permanently.

Released: 26 Sep 1997
Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller
Rated: R
IMDb: 6.8 / 10
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

Ramirez 228 lines, man
Jack 162 lines, man
Amos 68 lines, man
Carlos 43 lines, man
Maura 37 lines, woman
Carla 34 lines, woman
Head Kgb Officer 22 lines, man
Agnieska 18 lines, woman
Mickena 12 lines
Koj 11 lines, man

Full cast, 16 people

Aidan Quinn as Annibal Ramirez / Carlos
Donald Sutherland as Jack Shaw / Henry Fields
Ben Kingsley as Amos
Claudia Ferri as Maura Ramirez
Céline Bonnier as Carla
Vlasta Vrana as KGB Head Officer
Liliana Komorowska as Agnieska
Von Flores as Koj
Gregory Hlady as KGB Aide
Gabriel Marian Oseciuc as KGB Agent
Mitchell David Rothpan as Joey Ramirez
Frédéric Desager as KGB Agent
Kliment Denchev as KGB Technician
Yonathan Gordon as Yoni
Al Waxman as Carl Mickens - CIA
Lucie Laurier as Paris Lover

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 4 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 8% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 191

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers

Scenes	Women's lines	Men's lines
1 to 4	1	7
5 to 8	0	8
9 to 12	0	4
13 to 16	0	18
17 to 20	0	0
21 to 24	0	19
25 to 28	0	5
29 to 32	2	15
33 to 36	4	51
37 to 40	0	18
41 to 44	3	13
45 to 48	0	14
49 to 52	0	28
53 to 56	0	13
57 to 60	0	10
61 to 64	0	34
65 to 68	0	3
69 to 72	0	6
73 to 76	0	5
77 to 80	0	21
81 to 84	0	17
85 to 88	35	26
89 to 92	0	31
93 to 96	0	9
97 to 100	13	6
101 to 104	9	13
105 to 108	0	0
109 to 112	0	0
113 to 116	0	0
117 to 120	0	0
121 to 124	0	0
125 to 128	0	14
129 to 132	0	12
133 to 136	0	18
137 to 140	0	32
141 to 144	15	16
145 to 148	3	23
149 to 152	2	26
153 to 156	0	2
157 to 160	0	0
161 to 164	0	3
165 to 168	0	8
169 to 172	0	0
173 to 176	1	16
177 to 180	5	16
181 to 184	3	8
185 to 188	0	2
189 to 191	0	2

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 14 are women's.

96 lines from women, 592 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit B: who's in it

4 women and 11 men in the cast. 3 women and 11 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who gets heard

A woman speaks the first line. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 164 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 11% of the words (1,238), men 89% (10,023). Women have 14% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit D: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Two women

Two men

Exhibit E: behind the camera

3 of the 13 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 20% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Christian Duguay (man)
Written by: Dan Gordon (man), Sabi H. Shabtai (gender not listed)
Produced by: Franco Battista (man)
Shot by: David Franco (man), Christian Duguay (man)
Edited by: Yves Langlois (man)
Music by: Normand Corbeil (man)
Production design by: Michael Joy (man)
Costumes by: Ada Levin (gender not listed)
Cast by: Karen Margiotta (woman), Mary Margiotta (woman), Lucie Robitaille (woman)