A review of the 2017 movie “American Assassin”
For decades, the James Bond films defined the spy genre with a hard-edged hero chasing his foe from one exotic location to another. Then the Jason Bourne trology refined the genre with kinetic fight scenes and bad guys inside the hero’s camp as well as outside it.
“American Assassin” is an attempt to create a new spy franchise with elements of both Bond and Bourne but, while there is plenty of action and some twists, this is not of the same quality, primarily because the titular role of CIA agent Mitch Rapp (really?) is played by young Dylan O’Brien of the “Maze Runner” movies who does not yet have the gravitas for such a character.
Also there are scenes of gratuitous violence, especially in a gruesome torture sequence, and a fantastical ending that make this work somewhat second-rate.