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#21 - American Ultra
Nima Nourizadeh, 2015
A young stoner discovers that he is actually a sleeper agent and is being targeted for termination by a rogue CIA boss.
American Ultra stars Jesse Eisenberg as a shiftless stoner who works a dead-end convenience store job in a small town and lives with his girlfriend (Kristen Stewart). Things are okay, apart from Eisenberg's tendency to have incapacitating panic attacks every time he tries to leave town (which does cause some issues with his intentions to propose to Stewart). It turns out that there is a reason for that; Eisenberg is a sleeper agent who is actually the last surviving subject of an experimental program designed to create the perfect secret agent. The story proper kicks in when a high-ranking CIA boss (Topher Grace) decides to have Eisenberg eliminated. This leads to the CIA boss (Connie Britton) in charge of the original program re-activating Eisenberg, which leads to chaos as the town is locked down and Eisenberg must not only survive people trying to kill him but also figure out his true identity.
Any film that can be classified as a stoner film is usually able to provide at least some measure of humour, but American Ultra seems to be an exception in that regard. Despite having a pair of potheads as the leads and a number of recognisable comedic actors in the cast, the film is largely devoid of laughs. The dialogue is clunky, the jokes are all but imperceptible, and the performances tend to involve actors coasting on their respective levels of talent in some rather simplistic roles (with the most prominent example being Walton Goggins as a constantly-cackling assassin who is simply named "Laugher" - yeah, that's what kind of writing you're in for here). If anything, the decision to make Eisenberg and Stewart stoners comes across as an attempt to lend an extremely generic action-comedy a sense of personality that it never actually earns. This even extends to the film's visual approach - as if the opening "how we got here" scene featuring a bloodied Eisenberg in an interrogation room telling his story doesn't feel redundant enough, the rapid-fire flashback montage that sputters across the screen before the main title card definitely does. The combination of swift editing choices and varied shot types suggest an attempt to mimic the hyper-kinetic action-comedy style one associates with the works of Edgar Wright, but Nourizadeh's approach lacks distinction for better or worse.
Much like Pineapple Express, American Ultra fares better at being an action movie than at being a comedy. For the most part, there's not too much imagination to the proceedings as Eisenberg's unconscious displays of skill extend to little more than him killing enemies using improvised weapons and lightning-fast reflexes. Even so, these moments still yield the film's only true highlights, whether it's Eisenberg and Stewart attempting to escape a police station under siege or a fight scene taking place in a basement flooded with ultraviolet light. Above all else, I have to single out the climatic supermarket scene, which isn't all that novel in its concept but is still executed reasonably well. Unfortunately, a handful of explosive action scenes aren't enough to truly redeem American Ultra, which may not veer into genuinely offensive territory but still struggles to favourably distinguish itself as either an action movie or a comedy (especially the latter). The film doesn't exactly set the highest standards for itself but it still fails to meet them, rendering its short running time and quick pace meaningless in the process.
Nima Nourizadeh, 2015
A young stoner discovers that he is actually a sleeper agent and is being targeted for termination by a rogue CIA boss.
American Ultra stars Jesse Eisenberg as a shiftless stoner who works a dead-end convenience store job in a small town and lives with his girlfriend (Kristen Stewart). Things are okay, apart from Eisenberg's tendency to have incapacitating panic attacks every time he tries to leave town (which does cause some issues with his intentions to propose to Stewart). It turns out that there is a reason for that; Eisenberg is a sleeper agent who is actually the last surviving subject of an experimental program designed to create the perfect secret agent. The story proper kicks in when a high-ranking CIA boss (Topher Grace) decides to have Eisenberg eliminated. This leads to the CIA boss (Connie Britton) in charge of the original program re-activating Eisenberg, which leads to chaos as the town is locked down and Eisenberg must not only survive people trying to kill him but also figure out his true identity.
Any film that can be classified as a stoner film is usually able to provide at least some measure of humour, but American Ultra seems to be an exception in that regard. Despite having a pair of potheads as the leads and a number of recognisable comedic actors in the cast, the film is largely devoid of laughs. The dialogue is clunky, the jokes are all but imperceptible, and the performances tend to involve actors coasting on their respective levels of talent in some rather simplistic roles (with the most prominent example being Walton Goggins as a constantly-cackling assassin who is simply named "Laugher" - yeah, that's what kind of writing you're in for here). If anything, the decision to make Eisenberg and Stewart stoners comes across as an attempt to lend an extremely generic action-comedy a sense of personality that it never actually earns. This even extends to the film's visual approach - as if the opening "how we got here" scene featuring a bloodied Eisenberg in an interrogation room telling his story doesn't feel redundant enough, the rapid-fire flashback montage that sputters across the screen before the main title card definitely does. The combination of swift editing choices and varied shot types suggest an attempt to mimic the hyper-kinetic action-comedy style one associates with the works of Edgar Wright, but Nourizadeh's approach lacks distinction for better or worse.
Much like Pineapple Express, American Ultra fares better at being an action movie than at being a comedy. For the most part, there's not too much imagination to the proceedings as Eisenberg's unconscious displays of skill extend to little more than him killing enemies using improvised weapons and lightning-fast reflexes. Even so, these moments still yield the film's only true highlights, whether it's Eisenberg and Stewart attempting to escape a police station under siege or a fight scene taking place in a basement flooded with ultraviolet light. Above all else, I have to single out the climatic supermarket scene, which isn't all that novel in its concept but is still executed reasonably well. Unfortunately, a handful of explosive action scenes aren't enough to truly redeem American Ultra, which may not veer into genuinely offensive territory but still struggles to favourably distinguish itself as either an action movie or a comedy (especially the latter). The film doesn't exactly set the highest standards for itself but it still fails to meet them, rendering its short running time and quick pace meaningless in the process.