(dir. Nima Nourizadeh)
 |
| Lionsgate |
“Something very weird is happening to me. I keep killing people.”
It’s official: we’ve reached peak-espionage film
levels this year. With the previous offerings of Kingsman: The Secret Service, Spy,
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the upcoming
Hitman: Agent 47, Bridge of Spies, and Spectre, we’re certainly not lacking for
secret agents and world-shattering stakes. Yet the dearth of all of these
movies, only serve to make American Ultra
all the more energizing a take on the sub-genre. While it may not deliver
what’s expected, it’s certainly better than the marketing has promised.
Part stoner-comedy and part spy-thriller, American Ultra follows anxiety-ridden,
pot-fiend, Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) and his sympathetic, yet frustrated
girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart). When Mike and Phoebe become government
targets, he discovers he’s far more equipped to deal with the world than he ever
imagined. With recently discovered and deadly spy skills, and a bit of a buzz,
Mike must survive an onslaught of rogue government agents from the program that
created him.
While Eisenberg’s trademark awkwardness may make him a
suitable choice for an anxious stoner, buying him as an action hero is a bit
harder to swallow. Thankfully the film never makes a hard-turn in terms of his
characterization. There is no Pretty
Woman-esque transformation, no “manners maketh man” transition. Mike simply
remains a lowly-convenience store attendant with a few burned out brain cells
and a heaping of extra skills. As a result, the film’s twists are believable
and never more laughable than they should be. Kristen Stewart, who gets plenty
of twists and laughs of her own, is really good in her role as Phoebe. Partly
because of the script, and partly because of Stewart’s performance, Phoebe
never feels like dead weight, but instead a necessary and welcome presence on
screen. There’s a genuine level of sincerity and empathy that Stewart can emit,
given the right script, and in American
Ultra she adds a lot of heart to the film and gets in on a sizeable chunk
of the action. There’s not a weak-link in the supporting cast of Connie
Britton, Topher Grace, John Leguizamo, but it’s Walton Goggins’ psychotic
agent, Laughter, who nearly steals the show. While there’s a certain level of
familiarity to each of the roles, the cast add enough of their own touches to
give each scene a level of unpredictability even in the most exposition-heavy
scenes.
While Nima Nourizadeh only directed one film prior to
this (the found-footage party film, Project
X) he displays a capable handle on staging intimate scenes and action
sequences. His filmmaking is reminiscent of Matthew Vaughn in many ways,
especially in his clever uses of lighting, music, and getting the most out of a
modest budget. While Nourizadeh doesn’t quite take advantage of space in the
same way Vaughn does, he excels at capturing the feeling of old-school action
movies. While many movies of late have tried to deliver on that promise (i.e. John Wick) Nourizadeh comes the closest
by understanding the frequently messy choreography of those fights and refusing
to rely too much on gunplay. There’s an attack on a police station early on
that’s every bit as skillful as the one in The
Terminator, and the finale gives The
Equalizer a run for its money with the best use of props in an
action-sequence. Nourizadeh infuses American
Ultra with a surprisingly varied amount of ultra-violence that has the ugly
edge so many modern action films have been missing.
Even with the genuine, and surprising performances of
the cast and Nourizadeh’s imaginative direction, the true star of American Ultra is scribe Max Landis. American Ultra distinctly carries
Landis’ voice, even more so than his film-debut, Chronicle. Landis wears his comic book influences on his sleeve,
and while the film isn’t based on any pre-existing material, it’s easy to see
how the film would work as a graphic novel. The film’s editing-both the in way
the film moves between its key players and the deliberate, self-aware pacing-is
reminiscent of reading a comic from panel to panel. The humor is also
distinctly Landis’ and while some jokes fall a bit short, and the film is rarely
laugh-out-loud funny, it remains consistently clever enough to put a stupid
grin across your face for most of its runtime. From simply a narrative
standpoint, American Ultra is saved
by the fact that it never attempts to be a full-fledged comedy. There’s enough
high-stakes drama and tension to keep the film from ever feeling like a parody
of spy-thrillers.
While we’ve come to expect big-stakes action in
espionage films, the biggest stakes in American
Ultra are the personal ones, and that’s something Landis and Nourizadeh
never lose sight of. It’s not the fate of the world, or even America at
jeopardy, but small-town West Virginia. Mike doesn’t have to navigate a one-and-done
relationship with a mysterious femme fatale, but strengthen the relationship
with the woman he plans to marry. The film never tries to do more than the
budget allows or what the story requires, and in this regard it’s not so
different from the early Hitchcock spy-thrillers that created the subgenre. American Ultra is a film that entirely
succeeds in exactly what it tries to be—an achievement to take note of.
Everything is pleasingly on the surface, and the film manages to stay exciting
because of this. While the film is a little too unrefined on the technical side
of things at times, and occasionally too enchanted with its own cleverness to
work for everyone, American Ultra
successfully lives up to its midnight movie forbearers to deliver what could be
the cult hit of the year.
Grade: A-
