American Assassin is a 2017 action/thriller film directed by Michael Cuesta and is based on Vince Flynn’s 2010 novel of the same name. The film stars Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar and Taylor Kitsch, and follows a young CIA black ops recruit Mitch Rapp, who helps a Cold War veteran try to stop the launching of a nuclear weapon in the Middle East.
So this was another let down of a film. I’ve been following this film for awhile now, and was very intrigued by the film’s first trailer. After the second trailer dropped.. eh.. I kinda lost interest as I kinda knew what was going to become of this movie. It’s not so much that the film does a bad job in its execution, as I’m sure the book is very interesting and the movie probably follows it closely, I think it’s more about the small things that make American Assassin another film that just didn’t live up to its expectations.
So there are a few things that I thought the film did pretty well. For starters, Dylan O’Brien was phenomenal. This kid knows how to act, and I was honestly surprised by how well he did in this film. Michael Keaton also did a great job in his respective role, but O’Brien definitely stole the show in this one. As for his character? Eh, not so much. I feel like the film gives you enough exposition to feel for the character but never enough for you invest in the character. There are so many films with the same sort of premise that execute characters and character decisions so much better than this film, and it’s kinda a let down at times. Just when you want to learn more, the film continues to hold back.
As for the film’s story? Eh, again.. it has been done before and done better, but American Assassin doesn’t fall straight on its face either. There are some scenes which have some depth to them, and although I could pick up on some subtle foreshadowing, I can see where some reveals could surprise some more casual audience members. The story felt plausible at times while pushing some other plot points to the brink of almost impossible, but I would say that the story did a good job at holding itself up for the most part.
What this film didn’t do so well with was its pacing. Sure, usually good story goes hand and hand with good pacing, but this film just rushed somethings and then left other things way too drawn out. Although the movie had a decent runtime at around two hours, it felt a little too long and probably could have been cut down another 20 minutes. See I say that, but it also could have been another 20 minutes longer and could have explained a little more.. that’s the thing. Sure I wanted more backstory, but at the same time I felt as if the movie gave me too much details in other information that we didn’t really need to know about. Does that make sense? I know. Confusing. Just like this film’s pacing.
But what is an action movie without action? Well this film did a pretty decent job at that. There was one scene where a fight broke out on a boat, and I felt that it was not only well choreographed but also very well directed. There seemed to be a lot of these types of scenes in the film where there were small snippets of a really good action while being stuffed into something that just wasn’t all that fleshed out. There were a couple of scenes where the CGI pulled me out of the film’s immersion, but for the budget and spectacle that the film required, I thought it wasn’t too bad.
I guess that’s where I begin to wrap things up. Sure American Assassin isn’t a great film, it’s barely a good one even at that, but for all the hate that it’s been getting.. eh, maybe it wasn’t that bad. Dylan O’Brien and Michael Keaton did a great job, and although the film features a pretty mediocre story with decent action sequences, it still had some issues with immersion breaking CGI, and pretty awful pacing. Although I’ve seen plenty of better films, American Assassin still pulled out with an “Alright” on theVade Review Bar. It is by no means a great action movie, but I will say it was a hell of a lot better than the last movie I reviewed with Assassin in the title..
