Title: American Assassin
Starring: Taylor Kitch, Michael Keaton, Mitch Rapp
Director: Michael Cuesta
Time: 111 minutes
Released: 8th January
American Assassin is an action thriller starring most notably, Michael Keaton and Taylor Kitsch, about a CIA black ops recruit Mitch Rapp played by Dylan O’Brien, who after his girlfriend is murdered by terrorists gets pulled into the world of counter-terrorism. Although one might suggest that his move into such a field is past due, considering recent events surrounding his wife and her untimely death, the youngster makes the career move anyway and begins to flourish once under the careful tutelage of Uber-skilled former US Navy Seal Stan Hurley played by Michael Keaton.
There’s not much of anything new on show here, it’s well-worn stuff about the Cold War and stopping rogue states and terrorists from detonating nuclear devices. Of course this is all that American audiences have on their minds right now and with good reason, so why would film studios bombard them with films like these only they can tell us. Did they not get the memo that cinema is for relaxation and escapism, not the hard cold reality that they might at any moment be subject to the very real feel of 9M degrees of nuclear heat and subsequent shockwave and eventual nuclear winter resulting from a very real nuclear blast if Crazy Korean Kim launches nukes at their Eastern seaboard due to provocation from the equally mentally unhinged leader of their own country? Clearly not. So we get a tense film about two CIA guys going about their business trying to eliminate the threat of World World III. Naturally they’re successful, but watching a theatrical version of events that are no doubt actually playing out somewhere in Korea, Pakistan or Libya is hardly entertaining, more deeply worrying. But so long as the good old US of A win the day right?
Despite the slightly meandering script that relies a little too heavily on cliche the direction is solid enough and the cast perform well, including Keaton - not really suited to the role but doing his best with the part - and Rapp who mostly carries the film and does well despite his relatively young age and comparative lack of movie experience. Or perhaps I just don’t know anything about him because thus far he has only appeared in teenage fare such as TeenWolf (TV) and The Maze Runner.
Whether you enjoy this film or not will come down to your interest in CIA types and counter-terrorism story-lines, I’m not a huge fan of this genre I tend to fall asleep at the likes of Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, Green Zone or Zero Dark Thirty. That said, nuclear threat and terrorists - give me Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery in The Rock and I’ll watch that on repeat, so perhaps my opinion counts for little.
