American Assassin Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

American Assassin Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 2, 2017

American Assassin is one of those films that piles on one ludicrous plot element after another, but which may still appeal to some viewers simply because it offers, well, an American assassin attempting to take out a bunch of those nefarious terrorist types. The film is not exactly a model of innovation, but it can provide a study in how thrillers like this one ply such well worn plot tropes that they tend to telegraph their intentions at virtually every turn. Take the opening sequence as a salient example. Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) is enjoying an idyllic Spanish vacation with his girlfriend Katrina (Charlotte Vega). The two are frolicking in the ocean when Mitch takes a selfie video of his proposal to Katrina. Happily ever after, right? Well, it’s interesting to note that despite an absence of overt presentational aspects that anything is wrong, most viewers are going to sense something awful is about to happen. Is a shark going to snatch Katrina into the deep after Mitch runs to get them drinks at a nearby beach bar? Or is that boat zooming behind her in the ocean going to suddenly veer off course and take her out? American Assassin doesn’t prolong the suspense too long, finally delivering a crew of assassins of decidedly un-American nationality, in what seems to be a random terrorist attack on a scenic holiday beach site. It’s a viscerally disturbing scene, with a lot of kill shots documented in almost gut wrenchingly detailed style, and perhaps unexpectedly, Mitch takes a couple of bullets himself. It probably doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or even someone who has completed the Syd Field screenplay writing course, to know that Katrina’s fate is sealed, and this chaotic opening sequence ends with a kind of weird moment where a terrorist walks right by Mitch, who is struggling to crawl toward Katrina after being badly wounded himself, in order to spray another several rounds into Katrina.

Credulity starts getting stretched to the point where it resembles something in a Salvador Dali painting starting with the post beach massacre sequence. Mitch is evidently a distraught mourner, except that he’s grown a beard and learned a lot about Islam, in order to infiltrate a jihadist group headed by the mastermind behind the beach attack. Already the film is on perilous logical territory, especially since it later actually exploits supposed news articles about how Mitch survived the maelstrom. Wouldn’t the terrorists perhaps have figured out they were dealing with a “mole”? Making this whole plot thread even more incredible is the fact that during his training regimen in order to become a bad “you know what”, Mitch repeatedly engages in behaviors which probably would have gotten him arrested or at least institutionalized under some psych advisory.

But American Assassin simply marauds through these niggling qualms, and adds to the unbelievability of it all by having the CIA surreptitiously monitoring all of Mitch’s activities. Mitch does indeed get into the inner circle of the bad guys, traveling to Libya to do so, but in one of those scenes that is both “WTF” worthy and admittedly adrenaline pumping, a CIA black ops team takes out the villains just when Mitch was about to spring into vigilante mode himself. With absolutely no segue whatsoever, not to mention any contextualizing, the next scene simply finds Mitch as a kind of prisoner at a secret CIA headquarters, where a deputy director named Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) keeps muttering about Mitch’s test results “being off the charts”, by which she means she (of course) wants to recruit Mitch to be part of an “even more” special ops group that is headed by a legend named Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton).

You pretty much know (or at least should know, if you’ve ever seen a movie of this ilk before) what you’re in for from that point forward, with a hardnosed trainer trying to deal with a rule breaking brat who can’t (or won’t) follow orders, but who keeps getting the job done anyway. Along the way it’s revealed that the chief villain in this piece, known mostly as Ghost (Taylor Kitsch), has a long history with Stan (of course), and is out to create a nuclear catastrophe. There’s a putative love interest as well in the form of an embedded spy named Annika (Shiva Negar), who turns out to be — well, I won’t “spoil” anything, other than to say this particular twist is going to surprise no one.

The film has a number of really well done action elements, but it’s hobbled by its familiarity and by a really unhelpful climax that sees a nuclear bomb being detonated beneath the ocean, which in turn creates a spectacularly unrealistic CGI tsunami that almost takes out the Sixth Fleet. It’s all resolutely silly stuff, but it’s played with some considerable conviction by Keaton, O’Brien, and Kitsch, all of whom strut about with testosterone virtually oozing from their pores.

American Assassin Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

American Assassin is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists some of the ubiquitous Arri Alexa models as having digitally captured the film, but there's no info on whether this was finished at a 2K or 4K DI (I suspect the former, but if someone can point me toward authoritative data, I can update the review). For the most part, this is a great looking transfer that has excellent detail levels across the board and some really impressive depth of field in the many outdoor shots. There are a few isolated instances where a smattering of noise intrudes in darker moments, and there are also some moments where things seem to have been intentionally "distressed". There are also a couple of intentionally lower res looking sequences (like the opening on the beach, which is supposedly a "selfie" video taken from a phone). The palette, while tweaked at times, is actually kind of refreshingly natural looking throughout the presentation, and fine detail tends to pop quite admirably in brighter lighting conditions.

American Assassin Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

American Assassin features a really fantastic sounding Dolby Atmos track, one which derives considerable and (even better) consistent surround activity from a glut of effects like planes landing or explosions detonating. There is excellent discrete placement of a wide variety of ambient environmental sounds, including everything from crowd noises in outside locations to the impact of cars during a chase sequence. The track offers several key instances of boisterous LFE, including in the silly but hyperbolically entertaining climax. Dialogue, effects and score are all rendered with accuracy and clarity, with impressively wide dynamic range.

American Assassin Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Target Acquired: Creating an American Assassin (1080p; 9:54) is a pretty straightforward EPK with quite a few interviews and snippets from the film.


• Finding Mitch Rapp: Dylan O'Brien (1080p; 9:53) is another EPK fest, this time focused on the assassin hero of Vince Flynn's book series.


• Transfer of Power: Hurley and Ghost (1080p; 13:43) does much the same service with these two characters, with some decent interviews with Keaton and Kitsch.


• Weaponized: Training and Stunts (1080p; 12:05) is a good piece looking at some of the action choreography, and includes interviews with Keaton and O'Brien.


• In the Field: On Location (1080p; 9:29) looks at some of the far flung locales of the film.


• Alamo Drafthouse Q & A (1080i; 26:05) features Dylan O'Brien and Taylor Kitsch.

American Assassin Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You've probably seen a lot of what takes place in American Assassin in any number of other films, but this outing's predictability doesn't completely scuttle the excitement of several nicely staged set pieces. The film is pretty violent at times, and includes some bone crunching hand to hand combat sequences, which the trio of male stars bring off with quite a bit of flair. The plot is actually kind of ridiculous on any number of fronts (and what accent exactly is the venerable David Suchet attempting as a CIA operative?), but the film is brisk and regularly exciting, so adrenaline junkies may simply not care. Technical merits are very strong, and with caveats noted, American Assassin comes Recommended.