[rating=5.00]
If you combined the gritty jingoism of a Tom Clancy novel, the bloodthirsty carnage of John Wick, and a dash of the shaky cam aesthetic upon which the Bourne series is built, you’d have a working approximation of American Assassin, a film almost brazen in its attempts to defy criticism. This is a film that is, if nothing else, brashly what it is, and very little else. It lacks depth, nuance, or even a hint of character development. It also happens to be, well, kind of fun.
Oh, sure. If you want to get down to brass tacks and ask, “is this a good movie?” the answer, objectively, is “no.” It’s dumb, it’s rote, it’s predictable, and it’s trite. It relies on the worst and most objectionable tropes of the modern action thriller and, from its opening moments to its final scene, is utterly, beyond all else, familiar. It’s all of these things, and in response the film itself does little more than shrug its shoulders, look you in the eye, and say, “So?”
So, indeed. American Assassin makes no attempts to reach across the aisle to appeal to a higher-minded audience. It’s a movie that exists in a black and white world, where terrorists need killin’ and they’ve got just the corn-fed boy to do the job. It’s a chest-thumping ode to American Might, where men are men and justice is but a headshot away.
Dylan O’Brien plays Mitch Rapp, a man who, after seeing his new fiancé gunned down on a beach in Ibiza by a group of Islamic terrorists, decides to take justice into his own hands. Eighteen months after her murder, Mitch has dropped out of school, devoted himself to UFC training and knife throwing, and has infiltrated encrypted chat rooms in order to try and get closer to the men who planned his beloved’s murder. His attempts to infiltrate the cell are ruined when the CIA, who has been watching his every move, intervenes and arrests him, only to enlist him in a new super-secret program of elite assassins.
It’s an American revenge fantasy for those among us who live with a single-minded obsession about The Bad Guys. Your uncle who almost ruins Thanksgiving every year with his paranoid rants against “Eye-rain-ians”? He’s gonna love it. This will probably be his new favorite movie, and he’ll say that in total and complete earnestness while legit wondering why it wasn’t nominated for any awards.
Still, there’s kind of a dumb, pulpy satisfaction that can be pulled from the movie if you can lower yourself to its standards. As familiar and predictable as it all is, there are some genuine moments of solid action and tenseness as Rapp and the squad try to track down a makeshift nuclear device hobbled together from black market components. Even if you can’t quite get down to the movie’s level, there’s always Michael Keaton.
Keaton, a true national treasure, delivers his most insane and deliriously unhinged performance to date as Hurley, the leader of the elite squad of off the books assassins. American Assassin is almost entirely worth watching just to see how deeply Keaton can descend into batshittery. He doesn’t just steal scenes, he steals an entire movie, single-handedly elevating it to something almost worth watching on its merits; it’s awe inspiring to see.
Outside of Keaton, American Assassin is a film of little value that still mostly delivers on its promises and has a decent enough time in the process. Director Michael Cuesta (Executive Producer of the first two seasons of Homeland) is aware, if no one else is, that this is just a dumb action movie, and he crafts it to satisfy the urges of the genre. Terrorists get theirs, things are blown up, a helicopter chases a boat. Cool.
It’s big and it’s dumb, boldly so. If action is what you came for, then American Assassin delivers the goods. Whether or not the goods are worth receiving is another matter, one that’s best left to the eye of the receiver. Nothing you say or do is ever going to convince your uncle that it’s a bad movie, so maybe just sit back and let him enjoy himself.
American Assassin is now playing in theaters everywhere.
