![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/AmericanAssassin.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDirected by: Michael Cuesta
\nStarring: Dylan O\u2019Brien, Charlotte Vega, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan
\nRated: R (strong violence throughout, some torture, language and brief nudity)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something uniquely disappointing about a movie that checks off all the tick-boxes for a decent action-thriller-type film but just doesn\u2019t pull it all together. \u201cAmerican Assassin\u201d is a film in this category. Worse, it doesn\u2019t have enough self-awareness to make it campy and fun. This movie and its characters takes the whole thing very, very seriously. The sole exception is Michael Keaton, but he\u2019s not enough to save this movie.<\/p>\n
Our protagonist, Mitch (Dylan O\u2019Brien), loses his girlfriend in a terrorist attack and becomes obsessed with infiltrating and executing terrorist cells. The CIA saves him during a mission, then recruits him into a small program where people like him get trained to do that kind of thing professionally. The program is run by Stan Hurley (Keaton), who has seen Mitch\u2019s type before and is skeptical that he\u2019ll make a good field agent. The rest of the plot focuses on a mysterious group trying to get hold of the ingredients to make a nuclear bomb and our protagonists\u2019 attempts to stop it.<\/p>\n
The characters are all straight out of the action movie catalog, cardboard cutouts with no depth or complexity. Our hero doesn\u2019t manage to be likeable, let alone someone we can really cheer for. The movie can\u2019t even decide if he\u2019s good at what he\u2019s doing or not. His training apparently consists entirely of him getting defeated and berated by Stan, who declares him unreliable and untrustworthy, and then takes him out into the field anyway. Stan is painted by the film as someone who is good at what he does and knows what he\u2019s doing, but he utterly fails to change Mitch in any way, condemns Mitch\u2019s actions, and then seems okay with Mitch\u2019s complete failure to respect his training or his orders.<\/p>\n
A good villain can help make a movie with otherwise uninteresting characters enjoyable, but \u201cAmerican Assassin\u201d doesn\u2019t even get that right. The real villain doesn\u2019t show up until about two-thirds of the way through the film, and while his scenes involve ranting and torturing one of our main characters, he fails to make an impression. It probably doesn\u2019t help that both he and Dylan O\u2019Brien are cut from exactly the same action movie mold, to the point that they are almost indistinguishable from a distance.<\/p>\n
The special effects are very uneven. A lot of thought and effort went into the torture scene and a sequence of car-related mayhem, but there\u2019s also a wide shot involving a helicopter that is so obviously fake as to make the audience literally laugh out loud.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican Assassin\u201d feels like someone broke down a bunch of action thriller movies into scene summaries, then grabbed a bunch at random and strung them together into a film without changing much other than the character names. Plot point events are mentioned but then never happen or are never referred to again. Character development scenes show up, but the characters don\u2019t actually change.<\/p>\n
If you really, really want to see a new iteration of Michael Keaton doing his thing (including chewing scenery and co-stars as only he can), \u201cAmerican Assassin\u201d might be worth seeing. Otherwise, you\u2019re better off seeing one of the films \u201cAmerican Assassin\u201d wants to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed by: Michael Cuesta Starring: Dylan O\u2019Brien, Charlotte Vega, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan Rated: R (strong violence throughout, some torture, language and brief nudity) There\u2019s something uniquely disappointing about a movie that checks off all the tick-boxes for a decent action-thriller-type film but just doesn\u2019t pull it all together. \u201cAmerican Assassin\u201d is a film in this category. Worse, it doesn\u2019t have enough self-awareness to make it campy and fun. This movie and its characters takes the whole thing very, very seriously. The sole exception is Michael Keaton, but he\u2019s not enough to save this movie. Our protagonist, Mitch (Dylan O\u2019Brien), loses his girlfriend in a terrorist attack and becomes obsessed with infiltrating and executing terrorist cells. The CIA saves him during a mission, then recruits him into a small program where people like him get trained to do that kind of thing professionally. The program is run by Stan Hurley (Keaton), who has seen<\/p>\n