Review of American Ultra (2015) by Filmphonic — 04 Oct 2015

Jesse Eisenberg is reunited with his ‘Adventureland’ co-star Kristen Stewart as a pair of dysfunctional star-crossed lovers in a genre mash-up film that flirts with being a parody of a super-agent action/thriller, but ‘American Ultra’ isn’t consistently funny enough to be a parody, or a comedy for that matter.

In only his second film director Nima Nourizadeh tries to bring together several disparate elements into a bizarre comedic stoner love story mixed with a graphically violent spy action thriller, clearly inspired by much of Matthew Vaughan’s recent work and 2008’s ‘Pineapple Express’, but the result is an uncompelling mess.

The basic storyline is lifted directly from the ‘Bourne’ trilogy and infused with an absurd love story that cringingly attempts to be sincere and touching while a ludicrous amount of ultra-violence occurs around it, aside from a couple of moments ‘American Ultra’ is devoid of any real humour despite being a comedy and the absurd nature of the narrative gets old quickly.

The pace of the film is all over the place with action scenes broken up by misguided attempts at romance and tenderness, and when all else fails the action comes to the rescue right? Wrong, aside from a few creative ways of murdering people and the odd explosion, we can’t figure out how a $30 million budget for an independent film can deliver so little.

Jesse Eisenberg does his level best at essentially playing a young Woody Allen starring in a comedy remake of the ‘Bourne Identity’, Kristen Stewart does her best to stay out of the way but ultimately ‘American Ultra’ is less than the sum of its parts. A half-baked (pardon the pun) idea that only ever threatens to break out into a coherent and entertaining film.

The Bottom Line….

‘American Ultra’ is an ineffective mix of genre films which fails to capture the balance of elements that make them enjoyable, a derivative mess that’s marginally entertaining, occasionally funny and just barely watchable.