AMERICAN ASSASSIN Review

American Assassin is your extremely typical ‘by-the-numbers‘ secret agent film where the good guy takes on the international bad guy. It did not completely suck, as it gives you everything you would expect from a movie about a guy driven to kill the bad guys who killed his girl. (Like we've never seen that one before.)

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American Assassin stars Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton and Taylor Kitsch in a film adaptation of a Vince Flynn novel series, called “A Mitch Rapp Novel.”

It’s directed by Michael Cuesta whose resume includes TVs Homeland, Elementary, Dexter & Six Feet Under while his movies include L.I.E., Kill The Messenger, & 12 and Holding.

“When Cold War veteran Stan Hurley (Keaton) takes CIA black ops recruit Mitch Rapp (O’Brien) under his wing, they receive an assignment to investigate a wave of random attacks on both military and civilian targets. After discovering a pattern of violence, Hurley and Rapp join forces with a lethal Turkish agent to stop a mysterious operative who wants to start a global war.”

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I came into this film having seen only one trailer but it did not take long to realize I was predicting most every scene coming up. Which is truly spectacular considering I usually do my best to NOT do that. But that's how predictable and almost boring the film was.

O’Brien does not feel like your classic action hero, but if he can totally impress like Leonardo DiCaprio has done in his action roles, where somehow, DiCaprio makes it believable, then O’Brien can too.

But when O’Brien goes into action, production opts for edited action scenes instead of letting the action evolve through a scene.

Events take place like from terrorists that kids could make up on the fly in the front yard, as the baddies show up on a beach killing everyone and Rapp’s fiancee, except... for him. Him, they stand over then leave alone.

Then Cuesta directed the story with his 'by the numbers' technique, or the safe road, to direct, not create, a unique story.

Even though I like Keaton and Kitsch, and it’s nice to see Keaton getting work again, there was not much standing out here to make me completely revel in their roles.

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With all those seemingly negative remarks, it was at least a two-hour escape from life on the outside of the movie theater, and in that, I was not disappointed in. It did not suck to drop matinee prices on the film.

And they may have made enough to warrant a sequel. Yes, you read that right.

IMDb users gave American Assassin 6.8/10, while Rotten Tomatoes thrashed it with a 36%, while the RT audience gave it a 73%.

I’d give the film a popcorn 6/10.

But I have to say… if they come out with a sequel, which they might since they made enough money with this film, and with the same director, I will NOT waste my money on it. It will probably be more of the same. by-the-numbers kind of film. Or at least that’s what I would expect from this director.

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