American Assassin

American Assassin is an action thriller movie starring Dylan O’Brien and Micheal Keaton. I was honestly expecting this movie to be average but it was pretty good. The acting really drives the film and they shot the film in some beautiful locations around the world. I really enjoyed this movie, it is very serious and the fight scenes were coordinated so well. I think the film was very well done aside from the main plot, which did not make much sense as to why Mitch Rapp, the main character, gets involved at all.


The film reminds me of John Wick, the whole going after the person who wronged you and took away the thing you love. The film follows Mitch who loses someone he loves getting killed in a terrorist attack, while he watches and survives. He trains to become an assassin to infiltrate the foreign terrorist group and kill its leader. When he succeeds in doing so the CIA comes in and basically kills the guy he wanted to get revenge on. They then ask him to train with them and be a part of their task force to take on a new guy who they follow through Russia to Rome.


What doesn’t make sense to me is why Mitch agrees to do this. What is in it for him? Is it just because he has nothing better to do? Later it seems like he wants to prove people wrong and not go to jail for his attempt to infiltrate a terrorist group, but it still doesn’t line up with his ‘lone wolf’ persona. It feels like two entirely different plots in one movie and they did not spend enough time on his revenge plot to make it worth telling. They should have picked to do one or the other, not both. Although I do know the film was based on a novel so I assume they wanted to stick close to it and maybe this was already the case.


I love the two main actors, they are so talented and I’ve seen them both in a long list of films. This is some of Dylan O’Brien’s work and knowing that he was coming off of a difficult time in his life where he was considering quitting acting altogether, this is amazing. Especially the stunt work since he had a major almost life-threatening accident doing stunt work on Maze Runner: The Death Cure the year prior. Just a really great performance with great depth and range, and I’m glad he didn’t call it quits. Then to add to his performance you pair him with Micheal Keaton. The two characters play really well off of each other and they kind of save each other in a way.


In conclusion, I really liked this movie even though the plot was not amazing. It is a good quality movie and was enjoyable and thrilling to watch. The action sequences were well done, the characters were interesting, and the actors who played them did an amazing job. The film is available on Netflix and I recommend watching it on days when you just need a movie to watch. Definitely not family-friendly, if that was not implied already and includes some interesting messaging about international and domestic politics. The film is not anything super special but overall, it's just a good quality movie.