A Little Bit of Cliche Filled Fun
When it comes to thrillers and action films the story can pretty much always be the same as something else before it. Rarely do you see a brand new idea that you haven’t seen before. To overcome this, a film must be able to give a different view on it or at least have a well enough written plot filled with characters you care about and are rooting for and against. American Assassin is filled with the usual characters in play when comparing it to other save the world films. The difference American Assassin has is that you actually care.
American Assassin follows the story of Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) whose new fiance is killed during a terrorist attack at a resort beach. This tragedy leads Mitch down a dark path of chasing down those responsible until he becomes a CIA agent with expert training by his new mentor Stan (Michael Keaton). Together they attempt to stop a mysterious terrorist who is planning on building a nuclear bomb to destroy an unknown target.
The opening of American Assassin is what really kicks the film into a different gear as the terrorist attack on the beach that takes the life of Mitch’s fiance is brutal. The visuals of the attack really aren’t held back that much with it being like a more Hollywood style of the brutality in a film like The Raid. You see people getting shot and them actually getting hit and you see blood flying everywhere amongst the screams and panicking of the beachgoers running for their lives. This is crucial to the film’s success over other action/thrillers because it gives the film a purpose from the very start. Too many times have I watch an action/thriller and had to come up with a reason why the ‘hero’ is on the redemption journey.
The acting is another thing that makes the film worthwhile as O’Brien and Keaton really do a good job and managing to have an entertaining back and forth. Too rarely do films of this genre have just one good actor and then that’s it, an example of this would be the Taken franchise. You certainly don’t see any of the Taken movies for anything other than Liam Neeson but what American Assassin does is lets you leave the cinema thinking how good an actor Michael Keaton is and how surprisingly good at action films Dylan O’Brien is. He has a young Jason Bourne like style to him as he brawls and chases people down. Going into the film I was worried that he wouldn’t fit the role well enough but I guess I was proven wrong.
American Assassin isn’t by any means a perfect film, or even a great film, American Assassin is a good film that uses its actor’s and story well to be an entertaining hour and fifty minutes. The director, Michael Cuesta, manages to make a good film out of something that could’ve been quite boring in the hands of other people. It’ll be interesting to see if they make another one, I would be interested in it, and how they would continue the story or if it would just end up like the Taken franchise where everyone watches the other films because they know the first one was good. American Assassin is a cliched movie but its a cliched movie done well.