Following a terrorist attack on a beach, a civilian decides to take action against those behind the incident.
When Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) proposes to his girlfriend whilst on holiday at a beach resort, he didn’t anticipate the engagement being cut horrendously short by a terrorist attack in which almost everyone on the beach was injured or killed. In the months following the attack, Mitch decides that he wants sweet revenge. He puts himself in position to make a move on the man behind the attack that killed his loved one, only to be interrupted by U.S. armed forces just before he’s about to strike. He is held in custody before being referred to Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton), the man in charge of training individuals who are to be involved in black-ops style missions. The men prove themselves to be a real match for each other, and it’s not long before the two are going out on their first operation together to put a stop to an ex-trainee of Hurley’s wicked ways.
I was quite excited about American Assassin. On the surface, it looked like it was going to be a great action film that could potentially have been the making of Dylan O’Brien in slightly more grown-up cinema. Now I’ve seen it I have to be honest and say it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be, but that it was worth seeing nonetheless, and I do think it may have succeeded in helping the lead shed some of those more adolescent roles.
I do think Dylan O’Brien did a good job with his performance. He made the change that occurred in Mitch following the beach attack so easy to spot, and I think this was something that was of utmost importance to the role. It was the single motivation behind his character, so the amount of emphasis placed on it by O’Brien’s performance and the story itself was key, and I feel like this was one thing the film got bang on.
Michael Keaton clearly had fun with his role as Stan Hurley. It was good to see him revelling in the part he was playing. He was as tough as old boots on the surface, but deep down there was a man who had feelings and who was having his own issues, especially with the nature of the mission he was embarking on now. Basically, there was quite a lot more to his character than you were initially greeted with as a viewer. I think the combination of his and O’Brien’s character worked really well and was a dynamic that lifted the film considerably as they both complimented each other.
There was some really good explosive action in this film, which was nice because I don’t think we really get enough of these films where the action is one of the main events. Obviously, we’ve had some good action comedies such as The Nice Guys, and some off-kilter action thrillers in the form of The Accountant and Baby Driver lately, but it’s been a while since we’ve had a half decent serious action film. For that reason, I enjoyed the film because it didn’t hold back at all, especially during a torture scene that had quite a few people in the cinema cringing (pulling fingernails off does that to people I think). It’s also been a while since I’ve seen an opening scene that was as intense as the one here in a film that didn’t venture off into some next-level obscurity.
Despite everything I’ve just said, however, I have to be honest and say that I felt as though something was missing, or there was just something about it that meant it didn’t quite manage to join the greats of the genre for me. I’m glad I watched the film, and it definitely is something I would have watched at some point because of the type of film it was, but I can’t say that I’d rush to watch it again. It was just a bit too generic for me to go screaming from the rooftops about it, you know? It took quite a formulaic approach in the way it told the story and did get a bit messy at one point about halfway through, where I’ve still not 100% figured out what happened.
Overall, American Assassin is a solid film that I think adequately fulfils the need some of us were starting to have for a serious action flick that didn’t leave a terrible taste in our mouths. It was great to watch the dynamic between O’Brien and Keaton, and the action was full-throttle. It’s just a shame it couldn’t have been slightly more original, but hey, you can’t have everything all the time.
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