Review of American Assassin (2017) by James R — 06 Oct 2017

A pretty run of the mill espionage film that actually was better than I thought it was going to be, but overall will mostly likely be a pretty forgettable film down the line. The film is about a young man named Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) who after his fiance is killed during a terrorist attack in Spain kinda goes off the rails and begins self training himself thinking he can take down ISIS himself.

Well turns out the CIA has been monitoring Mitch and CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) see's the potential in Mitch and brings him in to have him train under a Cold War veteran named Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton).

Soon enough Mitch, Stan and a Turkish Agent named Annika (Shiva Negar) are on the trail of missing Plutonium which is being produced into a nuke by a rogue agent named Ghost (Taylor Kitsch). So overall this film has some pretty cool action sequences.

They are pretty fast and brutal, but it's not overdone. The story itself is pretty generic and I have to say predictable, but it wasn't too dumb. Keaton is absolutely great here as Hurley and I enjoyed all of his scenes.

O'Brien isn't bad as the lead, but he just doesn't come off as super likeable at times. We get him at his absolute lowest in his life, so he makes a lot of boneheaded moves throughout the film, but I can't argue the dude is gifted.

Kitsch is pretty damn over the top as the villain though and some of his scenes are probably the cheesiest (there's literally a scene with him jumping out a window and sliding down a flag....). Some of the CG in this film is god awful especially near the end of the film.

The cinematography and score are nothing to brag about either. Overall, this is a solid rent! It entertained me and I enjoyed the story for the most part.