AMERICAN ASSASSIN (2017)

Genre: Action / Thriller
Running Length: 1:52
Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Taylor Kitsch, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Scott Adkins
Director: Michael Cuesta
Screenplay: Stephen Schiff and Michael Finch and Edward Zwick & Marshall Herskovitz, based on the novel by Vince Flynn.

I'm going to try something different in this review. There will be minor spoilers. So, if you're intending to watch AMERICAN ASSASSIN please stop reading now. Come back after you've seen it.

Still here...ok here goes.

Firstly, let me start off with the plot.  A young good looking man (O'Brien) proposes to his beautiful girlfriend at a beach. Out of nowhere, a group of terrorist attacks everyone there and the girl is brutally gunned down. As a result, the guy grows a manly beard and trains himself to hunt and take down these cold blooded killers - all by himself. In the process, he is recruited by the CIA to help them stop a nuclear bomb threat.

To be fair, you can watch the above plot in the trailers. It was because of the trailers, especially the first one, I was captivated by what I saw. "Woah, the boy from the Maze Runner series looks macho here! And that John Carter dude plays a baddie? Michael Keaton??! Here take my money!"

But alas...this movie is so generic one can fall asleep during the film and when he wakes up, he can still follow what's happening on screen. If it wasn't for the big names, this would be a B-grade on-demand type of movie.

If the filmmakers could do this again, I have 3 suggestions for them to make American Assassin a much better watch.

1) Cast an unexpected actor as the lead
Credit should be given to O'Brien for giving his all for this film. But he is just not believable here. As O'Brien has done action flicks before, the filmmakers should have cast an unexpected actor in this movie. Think Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Before he became an action hero, he was this almost non-confrontational cool dude with a smirk in the romantic comedy TV series Moonlighting. Nobody would have thought he was capable of playing such an action driven role but he nailed it. (Nicholas Cage in The Rock and Con Air achieved a similar buzz too. Before these movies, he was a dramatic actor).

2) Cast an unexpected actor as the main villain 
Similar argument as (1). No doubt, Kitsch was an unexpected choice but he just wasn't menacing enough. He came across as a boy with daddy issues. Totally unforgettable. Anybody with decent acting chops could have played that role. Using Die Hard as an example again, think about the casting of Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber. Now, that's a real baddie. Before his breakout role, he played small dramatic roles on British TV.

3) Don't chicken out on the ending
I thought the filmmakers will be bold enough to do something daring at the end - to give it a "too little too late" finale causing hundreds of casualties. That could have redeemed the movie. But they played it safe.

If anything, American Assassin kills time.

RATING: 5.5/10