American Ultra ** (2015, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Connie Britton, Topher Grace, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, Walton Goggins, Tony Hale) – Movie Review

Jesse Eisenberg stars as small-town stoner Mike Howell, who works in a mini-mart and is writing a graphic novel about a superhero monkey (Apollo Ape) but doesn’t know he was trained by the CIA to be a lethal killing machine. Kristen Stewart plays Phoebe Larson, who Mike thinks is his girlfriend, and she is, but she is also his former CIA handler.

Topher Grace plays nasty CIA boss Adrian Yates who targets him for termination, and Connie Britton plays nice CIA agent Victoria Lasseter who wants to save her protégé Mike.

When agents come to kill Mike, he discovers his abilities as a deadly weapon, and eventually the truth as he tries to save himself and his girlfriend from getting wasted.

Trying to mix action, suspense and spy thriller with a stoner comedy is a tall order to bring off, and writer Max Landis and Nima Nourizadeh don’t. It’s an interesting failure. With plenty going on it never gets boring, and Eisenberg and Stewart give their familiar screen personas another okay workout. Britton is brisk and capable too, but Topher Grace, Walton Goggins (nutty agent) and Tony Hale (gay agent) are pretty slack, while John Leguizamo (drug dealer) and Bill Pullman (CIA boss) are shamefully wasted.

The action scenes are well staged and quite exciting. In a better film, they’d perhaps be truly exciting. The film’s fantasy concept undermines credibility and sympathy with the characters and their predicament. But it’s the bits in between the action that are really iffy, certainly any bits when Eisenberg and Stewart aren’t on screen. They work it like true professionals, still good when the chips are down. People who like them enough, will probably like the film enough. The music score is eccentric and very lively, giving things a lift.

The credits are at the end of the movie. Please stay to watch this animated sequence that ends in the film’s title.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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