AMERICAN ASSASSIN Review

When you're one of those people that goes to the cinema a lot it is movies such as American Assassin that seem to become the most stale and the most generic the fastest. Of course, to audiences that only see a few movies in theaters every year American Assassin will be a perfectly acceptable piece of action pulp. American Assassin is a film that will no doubt fulfill expectations for those that felt intrigued enough by the trailers to go out and buy a ticket, but while American Assassin is acceptable in terms of technical prowess, some interesting performance choices, and a rather straightforward if not clichéd plot it fails to really exceed in any way within the narrow parameters it has given itself to operate and exist within. No doubt hoping to piggy back off the success of last September's secret assassin thriller, The Accountant, American Assassin has neither the intrigue nor the style that picture had, but rather with this adaptation of the Vince Flynn airport novel director Michael Cuesta (the criminally overlooked Kill the Messenger) has settled squarely into middle-of-the-road  territory with a story that isn't afraid to go big, with Cuesta (in his first major studio movie) unfortunately deciding it best to stay as safe as possible. This inherent feeling stay as safe as possible is to be understood in many ways for, by making this a competent action/thriller and little more, Cuesta stood more of a chance to please the general public than he did taking risks and appeasing a few critics. With such a consensus comes a solid return and more opportunity and eventually, more power over ones endeavors. Cuesta is playing by the rules in American Assassin. To the movie's credit, it does subvert a handful of expectations within certain scenarios while never being afraid to flaunt its more brutal aspects, but it also never embraces its own genre for the more exciting aspects that such a genre has to offer. Rather, this is a movie that is given ample opportunity by its genre to do some cool things with the story it is telling, but rather than take advantage of them American Assassin seems to consistently waste each and every one of them.

Teaser Trailer for AMERICAN ASSASSIN

Lionsgate and CBS Films have released a first look at their feature adaptation for the late Vince Flynn's long-running series that centers around character Mitch Rapp. While I haven't personally read any of Flynn's novels there are apparently a lot of people who do. Each one of Flynn's fifteen (fifteen!) novels that are set in the world of counter terrorism and feature Rapp have been a New York Times best-seller, the three most recent entries having gone to number one, with the series as a whole having sold nearly 20 million copies to date. While we're on the subject, it seems American Assassin is actually the eleventh book in Flynn's series, but the first chronologically. This makes sense as to why the studio would then cast Dylan O'Brien in the lead role at the ripe old age of twenty-five as they are no doubt hoping this film might potentially kick-off a profitable franchise for them. All of that taken into consideration, this teaser for American Assassin is quite terrific and promises everything one could hope for from a piece of genre filmmaking like this. Director Michael Cuesta made one of the more underseen investigative procedural's and all-around underrated films of three years ago with Kill the Messenger and with the tone of the story he's working with here as well as an screenplay adapted by the likes of Michael Finch (Predators), Marshall Herskovitch (The Last Samurai), Stephen Schiff (The Americans), and director Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) it would seem Cuesta might be able to bring that same sense of urgency, suspense, and intrigue that he did with his last feature. Here's to hoping this is more along the lines of Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher than that of Zwick's lackluster sequel from last year. American Assassin also stars Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Kitsch,and opens on September 15, 2017.