Generic Pain: AMERICAN ASSASSIN

In a movie as painfully generic as American Assassin I start grasping at even the slightest glint of unexpected originality. Here it happens to be just one line, spoken by Michael Keaton in his role as a grizzled veteran trainer of deep-deep-deep-undercover operatives. He shoves a cell phone image of a suspect at his superior officer (Sanaa Lathan) and intensely inquires, “Does this picture bong a gong for you?” I appreciated all the trouble to think up a new way to say “rings a bell,” if only because there are literally no other scenes in the picture going that extra step. No, this is a movie flatly and drearily running through the standard dull, grim, guys-with-guns, geopolitical muddle thriller. There’s an ambitious hotshot who wants to save the world, a dead girlfriend serving as opening-scene eye candy and then motivation throughout, there’s a prickly mentor relationship, a couple double crosses, a mysterious connection between heroes and villains, thoughtless political hot button referencing (the Iran nuclear deal), gnarly scenes of torture, casual xenophobia, bloody Bourne-again action with a mild Wick twist, and a ticking time bomb finale with a big red glowing countdown clock. There’s not a single surprise to be found, up to and including the surprises. 

The film stars Dylan O’Brien, a welcome sight in his first role after a near-death accident on the set of the as-yet still unfinished third Maze Runner movie. (It’s sad enough he was nearly killed, but that it was for a Maze Runner is even sadder.) Here does what he can with a role that requires nothing more than a smooth face handsomely troubled and a taut athlete’s body wracked with mournful determination. In the opening scene he and his fiancé are caught in a terrorist attack. He survives, but not intact, having seen the love of his life gunned down before him. Now he’s on a one-man counterintelligence revenge operation until the government steps in and pivots him into a top-secret anti-terror death squad. The whole thing is a topsy-turvy militaristic retaliation fantasy, channeling the character’s vengeance into state-sponsored assassination training. Keaton and O’Brien do what they can with the hoary clichés they’re made to spout, while the rest of the cast fades slowly into the background. It becomes a grey blur out of which flicker a few fleeting moments provoking thought. Taylor Kitsch pops up as the villain, a weirdly small role and a chance to lament how his great-2012-that-wasn’t (with starring turns in the fun, but underrated, likes of John Carter and Savages) reduced him to this. There’s a scene of unseemly torture-approval, as an Iranian double agent is dunked in a tub until the truth is waterboarded out of her. The climax involves the aforementioned time bomb and a whole flotilla of CG battleships. It’s just all so boring and empty and routine.