I have to ask a question: Have I seen this movie before somewhere? Maybe, it has been a long time. It is a movie headlining a man who wants to have revenge on a guy that killed his girlfriend. It is not a spoiler because it is in the trailer and we have seen this formula in other action or other spy movies. I do not mind but it would be great to have another angle of that movie. The revenge concept is actually over in the first 15-20 minutes then the movie becomes something else where he gets trained and goes on a mission. The action is great, the performances are superb but I wished that the plot was not as overcomplicated and not as twisty. It is not a movie to go out to the theaters to watch but it is a worthy rental or cable watch.
Mitch Rapp (Dylan O'Brien) has been in psychological distress since his girlfriend was murdered by jihadist leader, Adnan Al-Mansur (Shahid Ahmed). 18 months later, he has been taking kickboxing lessons to improve his physique, but his impulsive attitude has been getting in the way. While meeting Mansur, Mitch and Mansur are both under surveillance by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan). A Special Forces Team rescues Mitch from his kidnapping from Mansur.
Kennedy knows all about Mitch's past including his girlfiend's death and also his parents getting killed in a car accident when he was a teenager. All Mitch has on his mind is revenge. Mitch is sent to Orion, a black ops training program run by former NAVY Seal/Cold War vet Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton). Hurley thinks little of Mitch and trains him hard but he is still wanting to kill people not with much intelligence or expertise. After some training, Mitch and Hurley go on a mission to uncover some intel on a former trainee named Ghost (Taylor Kitsch). They along with their operative, Annika Ogden (Shiva Negar), try to obtain some answers as to why Ghost is stealing plutonium.
The Accountant, from last year, had a style and mystery added to its story about an autistic assassin/accountant that does work for some criminals. Here, the mystery is gone because there is not much depth to either the story or the mission. I did not much care if they were going to save the world. But, I cared about the characters and also the action sequences are quite cool amidst a generic action spy plot. Dylan O'Brien, I thought, was solid as the main character as he shows that he could be a potential action star but it was rather a very quick execution with not much daring. There's not much for Sanaa Lathan's character to do which was disappointing. Taylor Kitsch was ok as the villain. However, Michael Keaton almost saves the movie for me with his wildly unpredictable performance that you cannot miss your eye on him. You expect his character to go somewhere, but, no, he does not.
It is unfortunate director Michael Cuesta did not make this a more interesting and more palpable action thriller to make me care enough plus this is a simple story. Why does he and the screenwriters want to make things complicated with its material? If they had fixed this, this movie would have been a competent entry and maybe be would spread some good generosity to go see this movie. The movie gives us some nifty and cool action sequences, but, I am disappointed that it did not embrace a more simplistic narrative because it wants to belong into the plethora of spy films. Good spy films. It does not. It is more of a one-time cable watch that you will say it is fun but not worth revisiting again.
**1/2
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