When Cold War veteran Stan Hurley takes CIA black ops recruit Mitch Rapp under his wing, they receive an assignment to investigate a wave of random attacks on both military and civilian targets. After discovering a pattern of violence, Hurley and Rapp join forces with a lethal Turkish agent to stop a mysterious operative who wants to start a global war. – Lionsgate Films

Yeah so I saw this movie last week. I don’t normal take this long to write a review but I just had no desire to talk about this movie. I am trying to be consistent though so here is my review. This review will probably be my shortest one to date.

American Assassin was directed by Michael Cuesta and written by Stephen Schiff, Michael Finch, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. I have no idea who any of those people are and quite frankly I don’t care enough to google them. This movie is based on a book of the same name by Vince Flynn. There is a series of books about the main character, Mitch Rapp. American Assassin was supposed to kick off a franchise like Jack Reacher. Mitch Rapp is the Jack Reacher in this series and apparently the books are quite good, this movie is not.

Shockingly this movie actually has great cast and none of them mailed it in. Michael Keaton plays Stan Hurley, a hard ass ex-military old guy. Keaton is always good and this role is no difference. Hurley is your generic grizzled military man but Keaton puts enough into the role to make him interesting. Dylan O’Brien plays emo Jack Reacher (Mitch Rapp.) I’ve been a fan of O’Brien since his time on Teen Wolf. The character of Mitch Rapp is basically Bruce Wayne but on top of dead parents his girlfriend is murdered in front of him in a terrorist attack. So Rapp trained like Batman to kill terrorists. O’Brien is good actor and he does his best with this role but the writing just isn’t there. I still look forward to seeing O’Brien in other stuff. There wasn’t really any bad acting in the film.

American Assassin isn’t a bad movie but it isn’t good either. This movie is like a rice cake, a plain rice cake. Flavored rice cakes aren’t that bad and plain ones aren’t bad if you put a topping like peanut butter on it. At first the crunch of a rice cake is nice until you realize there is no flavor. American Assassin has moments of “crunchiness” but there is no flavor or toppings.

Watch American Assassin when it is on Netflix or cable. Don’t bother going to the movies to see it.

I give American Assassin a 5.5 out of 10, unlikely to watch again.