Assassination Nation *** (2018, Odessa Young, Hari Nef, Suki Waterhouse, Colman Domingo, Bill Skarsgård) – Movie Review

Writer-director Sam Levinson’s full-on, full-throttle Assassination Nation (2018) is hard to like and hard to sit through, but it is done with great enthusiasm and skill, and huge self-belief – and very considerable show-off style. It has a lot of youth appeal and could make friends and influence people, just maybe.

Its assault on American present-day values is relentless, and shockingly negative, and there is not a decent, sympathetic character in sight, unless you call sympathetic the four teenage girls who take up guns in the fight to survive after a malicious data hack exposes the secrets of the mayor and high school principal in the American town of Salem. Ah, yes, a witch hunt.

Levinson has the older generation in power and the younger generation addicted to their phones and the internet, and mainly sex thereupon, on his agenda. He wants to assassinate the nation with his movie, and that he pretty much does. America is, apparently, an open sewer.

Odessa Young, Hari Nef, Suki Waterhouse and Abra star as Lily, Bex, Sarah and Em. In an artificial film, they bring their characters to vibrant life. Colman Domingo is excellent as Principal Turrell and Bill Skarsgård has a little room to make an impression as Lily’s none too nice boyfriend Mark.

Even as you admire much of what Levinson is doing to realise his movie, you are kind of wishing you were somewhere else, anywhere but here. It is clever, but a little too clever, and then again, not clever enough. Maybe it wants to be, but it is no eye-opener, no wake-up call. Our eyes are already open, we are awake. The question is just what the heck we are going to do. Levinson hasn’t a clue. Or, if he has, he is not saying.

It has things to say about the internet, morality, the digital age, male egos, gun culture, teenage sex and online delinquency, but nothing of this is actually new or surprising. Maybe it is too issue led, and maybe Levinson recognises that and tries to disguise it with his brio film-making style and his stop-at-nothing game plan that leaves subtlety not an option.

Assassination Nation certainly has something going for it, quite a lot maybe, but that is something not very nice.

It is rated R for disturbing bloody violence, strong sexual material including menace, pervasive strong language, and for drug and alcohol use – all involving teens.

It was picked up by Universal in a $10 million sale at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2018, so it is likely to attract a fairly large audience, certainly by the standards of an ‘art movie’.

Assassination Nation is in UK cinemas on 23 November 2018.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Bill Skarsgård plays Lily’s none too nice boyfriend Mark in Assassination Nation.