American Assassin (2017) [Blu-ray]
Action | Thriller

Tagline: It takes one to make one.

American Assassin follows the rise of Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) a CIA black ops recruit under the instruction of Cold War veteran Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton). The pair is then enlisted by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) to investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on both military and civilian targets. Together the three discover a pattern in the violence leading them to a joint mission with a lethal Turkish agent (Shiva Negar) to stop a mysterious operative (Taylor Kitsch) intent on starting a World War in the Middle East.

Storyline: Twenty three-year-old Mitch lost his parents to a tragic car accident at the age of fourteen, and his girlfriend to a terrorist attack just as they were engaged. Seeking revenge, he is enlisted by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy as a black ops recruit. Kennedy then assigns Cold War veteran Stan Hurley 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 to stop a mysterious operative intent on starting a world war in the Middle East. Written by Anonymous

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, December 2, 2017 American Assassin is one of those films that piles on one ludicrous plot element after another, but which may still appeal to some viewers simply because it offers, well, an American assassin attempting to take out a bunch of those nefarious terrorist types. The film is not exactly a model of innovation, but it can provide a study in how thrillers like this one ply such well worn plot tropes that they tend to telegraph their intentions at virtually every turn. Take the opening sequence as a salient example. Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) is enjoying an idyllic Spanish vacation with his girlfriend Katrina (Charlotte Vega). The two are frolicking in the ocean when Mitch takes a selfie video of his proposal to Katrina. Happily ever after, right? Well, it's interesting to note that despite an absence of overt presentational aspects that anything is wrong, most viewers are going to sense something awful is about to happen. Is a shark going to snatch Katrina into the deep after Mitch runs to get them drinks at a nearby beach bar? Or is that boat zooming behind her in the ocean going to suddenly veer off course and take her out? American Assassin doesn't prolong the suspense too long, finally delivering a crew of assassins of decidedly un-American nationality, in what seems to be a random terrorist attack on a scenic holiday beach site. It's a viscerally disturbing scene, with a lot of kill shots documented in almost gut wrenchingly detailed style, and perhaps unexpectedly, Mitch takes a couple of bullets himself. It probably doesn't take a rocket scientist, or even someone who has completed the Syd Field screenplay writing course, to know that Katrina's fate is sealed, and this chaotic opening sequence ends with a kind of weird moment where a terrorist walks right by Mitch, who is struggling to crawl toward Katrina after being badly wounded himself, in order to spray another several rounds into Katrina.

Credulity starts getting stretched to the point where it resembles something in a Salvador Dali painting starting with the post beach massacre sequence. Mitch is evidently a distraught mourner, except that he's grown a beard and learned a lot about Islam, in order to infiltrate a jihadist group headed by the mastermind behind the beach attack. Already the film is on perilous logical territory, especially since it later actually exploits supposed news articles about how Mitch survived the maelstrom. Wouldn't the terrorists perhaps have figured out they were dealing with a "mole"? Making this whole plot thread even more incredible is the fact that during his training regimen in order to become a bad "you know what", Mitch repeatedly engages in behaviors which probably would have gotten him arrested or at least institutionalized under some psych advisory.

But American Assassin simply marauds through these niggling qualms, and adds to the unbelievability of it all by having the CIA surreptitiously monitoring all of Mitch's activities. Mitch does indeed get into the inner circle of the bad guys, traveling to Libya to do so, but in one of those scenes that is both "WTF" worthy and admittedly adrenaline pumping, a CIA black ops team takes out the villains just when Mitch was about to spring into vigilante mode himself. With absolutely no segue whatsoever, not to mention any contextualizing, the next scene simply finds Mitch as a kind of prisoner at a secret CIA headquarters, where a deputy director named Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) keeps muttering about Mitch's test results "being off the charts", by which she means she (of course) wants to recruit Mitch to be part of an "even more" special ops group that is headed by a legend named Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton).

You pretty much know (or at least should know, if you've ever seen a movie of this ilk before) what you're in for from that point forward, with a hardnosed trainer trying to deal with a rule breaking brat who can't (or won't) follow orders, but who keeps getting the job done anyway. Along the way it's revealed that the chief villain in this piece, known mostly as Ghost (Taylor Kitsch), has a long history with Stan (of course), and is out to create a nuclear catastrophe. There's a putative love interest as well in the form of an embedded spy named Annika (Shiva Negar), who turns out to be — well, I won't "spoil" anything, other than to say this particular twist is going to surprise no one.

The film has a number of really well done action elements, but it's hobbled by its familiarity and by a really unhelpful climax that sees a nuclear bomb being detonated beneath the ocean, which in turn creates a spectacularly unrealistic CGI tsunami that almost takes out the Sixth Fleet. It's all resolutely silly stuff, but it's played with some considerable conviction by Keaton, O'Brien, and Kitsch, all of whom strut about with testosterone virtually oozing from their pores.

You've probably seen a lot of what takes place in American Assassin in any number of other films, but this outing's predictability doesn't completely scuttle the excitement of several nicely staged set pieces. The film is pretty violent at times, and includes some bone crunching hand to hand combat sequences, which the trio of male stars bring off with quite a bit of flair. The plot is actually kind of ridiculous on any number of fronts (and what accent exactly is the venerable David Suchet attempting as a CIA operative?), but the film is brisk and regularly exciting, so adrenaline junkies may simply not care. Technical merits are very strong, and with caveats noted, American Assassin comes Recommended.

[CSW] -3.2- This is a great action thriller. I had some problem with what I call inconsistencies in the personality of Mitch (Mitch Rapp), the main character (they were also present in Ghost (Taylor Kitsch), the main protagonist). I recognize that most of those inconsistencies were necessary to advance the story line, however I still found them to be annoying, and had those inconsistencies not been here I would have rated this movie at least a 4.6. It was well acted epically Stan Hurley (Keaton) who is in really good shape for his age and does an outstanding job, and Annika (Shiva Negar), who was totally believable. I think those little flaws kept this film from grabbing me with the impact that The Bourne Identity did years ago when I first watched it. And that is a shame because it could have.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box motion codes were available at the time of this rental although they are available now (and should enhance this movie).


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