FILM REVIEW OF ''AMERICAN ASSASSIN" (2017)

You’d think with gifted writers like Stephen Schiff, who wrote “True Crime” and “Lolita,” Michael Finch who penned “Hitman: Agent 47” and “The November Man,” and Edward Zwick & Marshall Herskovitz who teamed up for “Defiance” and “The Last Samurai,” that “American Assassin,” (**1/2 OUT OF ****) with “Maze Runner” star Dylan O’Brien, would have rivaled the James Bond movies and the Jason Bourne franchise as an international terrorist thriller.  Indeed, a sturdy cast gives their best, particularly Michael Keaton who radiates throughout, while the youthful O’Brien has grown up sufficiently so he appears credible as a vengeful adult.  Nevertheless, mediocre scripting sabotages “American Assassin.”  The chief problem lies with its bland hero.  Cinematic heroes should stand out.  As the gung-ho, ‘go-out-and-kill-all-terrorists-and-come-back-alive,’ O’Brien is given little with which to forge a charismatic character. Basically, Mitch Rapp qualifies as an adequate but nondescript hero.  The only reason we feel sympathetic toward him is the tragedy involving his fiancée’s death; this now fuels his every waking moment.  Conversely, as CIA survivalist specialist Stan Hurley who trains black ops agents, Michael Keaton energizes every scene with his brazen bravado.  You have fun watching Keaton soak up every second whether he is shooting at an enemy or withstanding the villain as the latter tortures him.  Similarly, as the evil villain, Taylor Kitsch is almost as captivating as Keaton.  Furthermore, he is the best kind of villain who manages to stay one step ahead of the heroes and keeps surprising us and them.  Adversaries like Keaton’s trainer and Kitsch’s terrorist make O’Brien’s Mitch Rapp look like crap.  Happily, “12 and Holding” director Michael Cuesta keeps things moving so swiftly that it is possible to overlook the colorless but driven hero.  Little of this ambitious plot, however, is original.  “American Assassin” appropriates characters and predicaments from earlier movies, specifically like “Black Sunday” (1977) “The Amateur” (1981), “The Peacemaker” (1997), and “Munich” (2005) about villains with nuclear warheads.

Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) is vacationing in sunny Ibiza, Spain, with his beautiful, blonde, bikini-clad girlfriend Katrina (newcomer Charlotte Vega) when he surprises her with a marriage proposal.  Suddenly, murderous Islamist jihadists shatter their happiness and shoot everybody in sight.  The terrorists wound Mitch twice, and by the time that he reaches his fiancée, she is dead.  Over a year later, Mitch has learned to defend himself with his bare hands, practiced enough with firearms until he can obliterate bullseyes, and learned enough about his Middle-East adversaries so he can infiltrate their cells.  Little does our hero know CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan of “Love & Basketball”) has had him under surveillance.  Eventually, Mitch tracks down the monster who orchestrated the bloody Ibiza beach massacre, Adnan Al-Mansur (Shahid Ahmed of “Syriana”), to Tripoli, Libya.  Mitch has just gotten to meet Al-Mansur when CIA agents charge into the room and blast the terrorists.  Mitch watches in horror as Mansur dies from a shot in the head. This doesn’t keep Mitch from stabbing Al-Mansur’s corpse from repeatedly until the Americans drag him off the body.  The CIA keeps Mitch on ice for 30 days until Kennedy convinces CIA Director Thomas Stansfield (David Suchet of “Agatha Christie's Poirot”) to allow Mitch to join the Agency.  Initially, former Navy Seal veteran Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton of “The Founder”) abhors the prospect of training a civilian.  Nevertheless, Mitch emerges at the top of his class, despite all of Hurley’s dirty tricks to run him off.  The action comes to boil when the Agency learns about the theft of weapons grade plutonium from an off-line Russian nuclear facility.  Worse, Hurley recognizes the thief as an ex-CIA agent, referred to as Ghost (Taylor Kitsch of “John Carter of Mars”), left behind to die on a mission.  Miraculously, Ghost survived and plans to use the plutonium as payback to construct an atomic bomb.  Ghost double-crosses everybody along the way who helped build the bomb, and CIA don’t discover his plan until it is almost too late to thwart him.

If you’ve read Vince Flynn’s bestseller, you’ll know director Michael Cuesta and his writers have scrapped the novel’s plot.  Indeed, they have preserved certain scenes, primarily the boot camp and the torture scenes.  The plot about Stan’s former student Ghost is a figment entirely of the screenwriters’ imagination.  Ghost doesn’t exist in the novel.  Instead of a saboteur like Ghost in the film, our heroes contend with Middle Eastern regimes clashing with each other in bombed-out Beirut.  While an entirely different character tortured Stan in the novel, the villain suffers the same fate as Ghost does in the movie.  Letting down his guard momentarily, the torturer gives Stan the chance to chew off a piece of his ear.  Comparably, Flynn dispatched Rapp and Hurley to Europe to kill an amoral banker who had been managing millions of dollars for the terrorists as well as Russian espionage agents in Moscow.  Further, Mitch’s girlfriend didn’t die on the beach in Flynn’s novel.  Instead, she died aboard the doomed Pan Am flight 103 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland.  Mind you, sticking Mitch and his fiancée together on the same beach gives our protagonist greater incentive to embark on a “Death Wish” style revenge spree since he saw her die.  Obviously, staging the beach massacre was easier than generating a CGI model of the Pan Am jetliner exploding.  The Mitch in Flynn’s novel didn’t experience his girlfriend’s death first-hand as his cinematic counterpart.  Most of the last part of the novel occurred in Beirut where terrorists abduct Stan, and Mitch launches a rescue mission.  The grand finale in the film occurs in the Atlantic, and Ghost is playing for far higher stakes than his counterparts in the novel.  Altogether, Schiff, Finch, Zwick, and Herskovitz have done an exemplary job of ramping up more larger-than-life derring-do, and Mitch takes greater initiative in his efforts to carry out his mission.  Although competently-made and fast-paced, the rated-R “American Assassin” is still far too derivative to rank as memorable.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD" (2017)

As the summer doldrums descend upon us with the impending change of the seasons, it is reassuring Hollywood has produced a genuinely entertaining action comedy to tide us over until the major Thanksgiving and Christmas releases.   Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson make a charismatic combo with no love lost for each other in the fast-paced but formulaic thriller “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” (***1/2 out of ****) co-starring Gary Oldman and Salma Hayek.  “Expendables 3” director Patrick Hughes proves not only that he can orchestrate some extraordinary stunts involving vehicular mayhem on a modest $30-million budget, but he also gets inspired performances from his gifted cast.  Indeed, you’ve seen variations of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” many times before in road pictures about mismatched heroes, such as the two “48 HRS” movies, “The Rundown,” “The Rookie,” the “Rush Hour” trilogy, the “Lethal Weapon” series, “The Nice Guys,” and “Midnight Run.”  This adrenalin-laced saga benefits from catchy dialogue courtesy of “Fire with Fire” scenarist Tim O’Connor who gives everybody quotable lines peppered with flavorful profanity as well as a plot sizzling with surprises galore.  Of course, you know Ryan Reynolds is going to deliver Samuel L. Jackson as a witness to testify against villainous Gary Oldman before the deadline when the latter can be cleared off all charges against his murderous Eastern European regime.  The destination isn’t as much a revelation as the rollercoaster ride that everybody takes to arrive there in the nick of time.  All too often movies like “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” lose steam somewhere in the middle, but Australian director Patrick Hughes maintains the momentum throughout its 118 minutes.  The gauntlet that our bickering heroic pair must negotiate keeps challenging them right up until to the last second. Happily, the gals in this slam-bang, grudge match aren’t destitute damsels-in-distress, but babes that can shoot straight, smash testicles with their feet, and rival the guys with their profanity.  Clearly, sensitive souls searching for philosophical insights about life’s mysteries should shun this implausible but entertaining nonsense.

Debonair Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds of “Deadpool”) is at the top of his game as an elite triple-A bodyguard who will shield any scoundrel who can afford his services.  Bryce knows all the tricks of the trade.  As “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” unfolds, our clean-shaven, well-dressed, suit and tie executive has escorted a notorious Japanese arms dealer, Kurosawa (Tsuwayuki Saotome of “London Has Fallen”), to the airport to bid him farewell when a random shot out of the blue obliterates the arms dealer as the latter is peering out the window of his jet at Bryce.  Our protagonist is stunned beyond expression and watches as his bodyguard service folds.  Initially, Bryce blames his girlfriend, Interpol Agent Amelia Roussel (Elodie Yung of “Gods of Egypt”), for her lack of discretion. Michael believes Amelia leaked word about the Japanese arms dealer’s presence.  They separate over this breach.  Meantime, genocidal Belarusian dictator Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman of “True Romance”), is on trial at The Hague in the Netherlands for international human rights violations.  As the trial winds down to its inevitable conclusion, the prosecution cannot seem to keep its’ witnesses alive long enough for them to testify.  The last man scheduled to take the stand against Dukhovich is the world’s deadliest hitman, Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson of “Pulp Fiction”), who refused an offer from him.  Simply said, Kincaid doesn’t murder innocent women and children. He has irrefutable evidence which will seal Dukhovich’s fate.  Basically, Kincaid has cut a deal with the prosecutor to talk if she will release his wife, Sonia Kincaid (Salma Hayek of “Everly”), from an Amsterdam prison.  As Kincaid later tells Sonia, he doesn’t care if they send him to prison because there isn’t a prison secure enough to hold him.

Interpol sets out to haul Kincaid from Manchester, England, under a heavily armed guard to The Hague.  An informer within the ranks, however, tips off Dukhovich’s top assassin, Ivan (Yuri Kolokolnikov of “Game of Thrones”), about the route.  Ivan’s trigger-happy henchmen ambush the Interpol van and wipe out everybody but Amelia and Kincaid. Kincaid catches a slug in the leg before Amelia and he elude the killers.  She escorts Kincaid to a safehouse where he digs the bullet out of his calf as if he were Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo and bandages himself.  Afterward, Kincaid refuses flatly to cooperate with Interpol.  Reluctantly, Amelia swallows her pride and resorts to Michael for help.  At first, he wants nothing to do with this suicidal kiss of death exercise.  Nevertheless, he caves in to his desperate ex-girlfriend’s pleas.  No sooner have Michael and Kincaid met than they are shoving pistols in each other’s faces. “My job is to keep you out of harm’s way,” Michael reminds Kincaid. “I am harm’s way,” Jackson retorts defiantly.  Since his near miss with death during the ambush, Kincaid has gone to packing a pistol.  As it turns out, Michael and Kincaid discover they are old adversaries, and they spend the rest of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” swapping insults when they aren’t whittling down the army of gunmen that outnumbers them. 

“The Hitman’s Bodyguard” indulges in everything action movie fans crave.  Director Patrick Hughes knows better than to let the expository dialogue scenes interfere with the plethora of shooting and killing.  The body count escalates into double-digits, and Kincaid himself knocks off almost thirty gunmen.  Although our heroes cannot perish, life is hardly a picnic as they dodge one barrage after another. Half of the time, Kincaid and Michael are working against each other. For example, Kincaid stomps the brakes during a careening car chase and a surprised Michael performs a header through the windshield but regains his footing without missing a stride.  Ironically, the relationship between them improves as the odds against their survival worsen.  Meanwhile, Gary Oldman arouses our wrath as an appropriately despicable villain who kills without a qualm.  Villains must be hard-boiled in thrillers.  Despite its familiarity, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” delivers everything that makes an action movie unforgettable!

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN" (2016)

“Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua’s bloodless, bullet-riddled remake of the classic western “The Magnificent Seven” (1960) lacks both its prestigious predecessor’s ultra-cool pugnacity under fire and its complex character development.  Nevertheless, while it doesn’t eclipse the first-class Yul Brynner & Steve McQueen shoot’em up, neither does the new “Seven” embarrass itself as some remakes such as “Ben-Hur.”  Loaded for bear, with a triple-digit body count, and rawhide performances by Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, and Ethan Hawke, Fuqua’s “Magnificent Seven” (*** OUT OF ****) qualifies as an entertaining, above-average, horse opera.  Shunning a scene-for-scene rehash of the original, “True Detective” scenarist Nic Pizzolatto and “Expendables 2” scribe Richard Wenk have shifted the setting from Mexico to America, as well as created fresh characters in no way related to anybody else in the three earlier “Magnificent Seven” sequels.  Interestingly, in changing the physical setting, Fuqua’s film resembles the short-lived CBS-TV series “The Magnificent Seven” (1998-2000) where the seven defended a frontier town against outsiders. Similarly, in both the television show and Fuqua’s version, a woman is responsible for recruiting the seven.  For the record, director John Sturges’ “The Magnificent Seven” was itself a remake of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s landmark film. If retooling a samurai saga as a sagebrusher sounds bizarre, consider this: Sergio Leone’s groundbreaking Spaghetti western “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964) with Clint Eastwood was a remake of another Kurosawa samurai slash’em-up “Yojimbo” (1961) again with Toshirô Mifune.  Furthermore, later in 1964, American director Martin Ritt adapted yet another Kurosawa yarn “Rashomon” (1950) into the Paul Newman & William Shatner western “The Outrage.” Incidentally, science fiction aficionados should know that George Lucas has said that Kurosawa’s film “The Hidden Fortress” (1958), served as inspiration for his own historic “Star Wars” franchise. 

The original “Magnificent Seven” took place in Mexico.  Seven mercenaries who were down on their luck accepted a gold eagle--$20--for six weeks to safeguard a destitute farming village from the depredations of marauding banditos.  Calvera and his bandits would strike during harvest, but leave the farmers with adequate food to survive until they returned to plunder anew.  The “Magnificent Seven” reboot relocates the action to a traditional American western town.  Malignant capitalist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard of “Black Mass”) plans to buy up all the property in the town of Rose Creek to mine gold.  As the story unfolds, Bogue visits the townspeople at their church where they have assembled to settle this intolerable predicament.  The mustache-twirling Bogue offers them $20 each for their land parcels.  Furthermore, he stipulates that they have three weeks either to accommodate him or suffer the dire consequences.  Were this miserly offer not insulting enough for the settlers, Bogue draws first blood and shoots some of them in cold blood.  Bogue’s Native American sidekick derives special relish from burying his hatchet in the back of a fleeing woman.  Bogue blasts one dissenter, Matthew Cullen (Matt Bomer of “The Nice Guys”), at point blank range without a qualm. After grieving over her husband, Emma Cullen (Jennifer Lawrence lookalike Hayley Bennett of “Hardcore Henry”) approaches bounty hunter Sam Chisolm and implores him to help her fellow townspeople thwart Bogue’s ambitions. “Sir,” she addresses Sam. “I have a proposition. We're decent people being driven from our homes. Slaughtered in cold blood.” Decked out head to toe in black on a black horse, Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington of “Unstoppable”) queries Emma: “So you seek revenge?” The widow replies,” I seek righteousness. But I'll take revenge.”

Sam recruits a nimble cardsharp, Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt of “Guardians of the Galaxy”), who cannot seem to avoid trouble or its consequences.  Clearly, Pratt’s character is forged in the mold of Steve McQueen’s character. These two spout a similar story about a hombre who jumped off a hotel roof. As the gent plunged past each window, spectators heard him say: “So far, so good.”  Fuqua gets more mileage out of this story than the John Sturges film imagined.  Fuqua appropriates one of original villain’s best lines for Bogue, who philosophically ponders the fate of the townspeople. “If God had not wanted them sheared, he would have not made them sheep.”  This seven amounts to a rugged multicultural outfit: an Asian gunslinger Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee of “Terminator Genisys”) wields knife with deadly grace; a lethal Comanche archer (newcomer Martin Sensmeier) never misses; a flinty Hispanic pistolero Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo of “Term Life”) displays enviable marksmanship skills, a Grizzly Adams mountain man Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio of “Full Metal Jacket”) likes to work in close with a hatchet, and a former Confederate sniper Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke of “The Purge”) struggles to conceal the nerve that he has lost.   Robicheaux combines the characters of Lee and Harry Luck from the original film, while Billy Rocks is the James Coburn character.       

Some abhor remakes more than sequels.  I saw “The Magnificent Seven” during its initial theatrical release in 1960, and I’ve seen it so many times since I can recite its many quotable lines, savor the slap and draw six-gun scene, and hum the evocative Elmer Bernstein title theme.  Happily, as the end credits roll, Fuqua cues Bernstein’s two-time Oscar nominated orchestral score.  Leathery tough “Magnificent Seven” fanatics will applaud this homage.  Hollywood had been pondering a remake of the Sturges’ western for almost decade.  Initially, the thought of such a remake filled me with dread.  Anybody who suffered through the abysmal remake of “Ben-Hur” (2016) knows the kind of blasphemy that can occur when a remake goes sideways.  The Charlton Heston version of “Ben-Hur” has withstood the ravages of time and nothing Hollywood can conjure up will surpass it. Fortunately, while it doesn’t contain as much clever, incisive dialogue as its predecessor, “The Magnificent Seven” remake isn’t the disaster I feared.  Indeed, Fuqua’s ensemble shootout ranks as one of the best westerns since the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit.”  Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke stand out in a gifted cast. Peter Sarsgaard scores as a repulsive villain, but he doesn’t boast the cutthroat humor that the original “Magnificent Seven” villain Calvera (played by Eli Wallach) had.  Nonetheless, what Sarsgaard’s villain lacks in dimension, he compensates for with murder.  Altogether, despite some idiotic comic relief, the remake of “The Magnificent Seven” is worth saddling up to see.