American Assassin Review

R: Strong violence throughout, some torture, language and brief nudity

Lionsgate, CBS Films

1 Hr and 51 Minutes

Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Kitsch

INTRO: Well look at you Dylan O’ Brien. Stepping into some big boy shoes and crossing towards R-rated territory. Seriously when I heard about this movie and the first thing I thought was “shouldn’t Tom Cruise star in a role like this?” I mean the name of this sounds as generic as your average action thriller. Shoot, at first I thought this was a follow-up to Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper,” opposed to it being based on a series of books especially since Bradley Cooper never showed up in the trailer. But hey this is Dylan’s first R-rated leading role so nothing can bring him down. Hopefully not even Taylor Kitsch.

Mitch Rapp (O'Brien), 23, lost his girlfriend to a terrorist attack just as they were engaged. Seeking revenge, he is enlisted by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Lathan) as a black ops recruit. Kennedy then assigns Cold War veteran Stan Hurley (Keaton) to train Mitch. Together they will, later on, investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on military and civilian targets. The discovery of a pattern in the violence leads them to a joint mission with a lethal Turkish agent, Annika (Negar), to stop a mysterious operative, nicknamed "Ghost" (Kitsch), intent on starting a world war in the Middle East.

THE GOOD: One of the first things I respect about the film is show how anything bad can happen in a matter of seconds. The film has Mitch Lapp getting engaged at one second and then become single the next due to an ultra-violent massacre on a beach that has countless lives lost including his fiancee’s. 

The shit is so tragic even Batman would go, “Damn man. That’s rough.”

Shoot, in 18 months, he becomes Batman in the level of his combat skills. He can kick ass, he can throw knives like batarangs, and most of all shoot targets easily. I mean Batman doesn’t use guns, but hey DCEU Batman does so it counts. You don’t see what happens in between those 18 months, but you can assume he was training with The League of Shadows. 

The cinematography is beautiful; especially when it comes to dolly and expositional shots. It never loses its focus off Mitch’s prejudice and racism against….Muslim people and the film will always remind you of it not verbally but visually. 

The film’s direction is fantastic in regards of action sequences and choreography. Its nothing in like the top 100 action sequences of all time, but everything is cut clean and clear which makes the experience entertaining at least. It uses advtange of its R rating to good effect by having blood spurts come out of anyone who gets shot and its gloriously unsettling at some points.

You can give Michael Keaton a shitty dialogue, but he can make it badass as hell as hell. Once Keaton comes to screen, the film briefly becomes an entirely different movie for it features training sequences that feel inspired by films such “Hunger Games” and “Kingsman."

THE BAD: At first, the film starts like a character-driven story, but after a certain point, the story shifts into just another spy flick where these assassins go after terrorists who have criminal plans of villains straight out of a James Bond flick. It doesn’t help that Taylor Kitsch’s performance is one similar to a Bond villain and during the Pierce Bronson era for that matter. The film spends so much time focusing on Mitch’s racism against Muslim people due to obvious reasons, but then it derails from that to just be another spy thriller.

If this shit were called "Assassin’s Creed" but had no relation to its source material similar to what "World War Z " was, this would've been rather pretty fun.

When you’re a cheap action thriller, don’t try using VFX for your bloated conclusion. When this film gets to its final 15 minutes, this movie gets very CG heavy and its god awful. A lot of shots by that point look so unrendered that they just shipped out because the deadline for release was approaching.

LAST STATEMENT: Its generic as hell for an action movie, but American Assassin has solid action and fine performances to make it an average recommendation.

But you know you’re waiting for Kingsman.

RATING: 3/5 | 62%

Super Scene: Michael Keaton pulls an Evander Holyfield.