American Assassin

Feisty brutal action sequences are the only major positives of the latest Hollywood film American Assassin. Apart from that, everything that you see on screen is a big cliché. Those of you who have seen films that are based on undercover operation knows how the story goes usually and this one has the exact same nature with many twists that are visible from far behind.

Mitch Rapp lost his girlfriend in a gunfire that happened on a beach by terrorists. That changed him in a drastic way and he trained himself to be someone who can single handedly takes down the whole terrorist group (too ambitious). But the CIA finds him and decided to use him as their tool in future operations and the film is about one such critical operation Rapp did under the leadership of Stan Hurley.

Like I said, there is nothing really fresh in this movie. We kind of know who is going to be the backstabber and what will happen in the next moment. The usual revenge thoughts and disciplined agent life drills are shown in the movie and the good thing is that all these things are happening pretty quickly. A lot of things are happening in the movie within 111 minutes and that keeps you away from boredom and also surprise. I was hoping for the movie to take a fresh turn from the typical ones every time something twisty happened, but seems like the writers of the film has zero interest in that.

Michael Cuesta who has made an impression by making TV series’ including Dexter has a nice way of capturing action. The chases, fist fights and gun shots are exhilarating and thrilling. But there is very little he can do to make the clichéd writing look gripping on screen. The climax of the film has this nuclear bomb explosion, and it is really hard to digest that the casualties of such a thing was that minimal. The cinematography and cuts were good when it came to capturing all the action; opening shootout was a really commendable effort. The visual effects were also pretty good.

Maze Runner fame Dylan O’Brien looks tough and is convincing as the emotionally vulnerable amateur spy. The determination and attitude required for the character was there in his performance. There is nothing really challenging here for someone like Michael Keaton. Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Kitsch are the other actors who has got major roles in this film.

If you love watching hardcore real action, American Assassin has a lot of that to keep you occupied. For people who are really interested in fresh content and quality making, choose another film. It will be interesting to see whether they would try their luck with a sequel.

Rating: 2/5