American Assassin Trailer (2017)

Trailer for CBS Films' American Assassin.

American Assassin follows the rise of Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien), a CIA black ops recruit under the instruction of Cold War veteran Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton). The pair is then enlisted by CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) to investigate a wave of apparently random attacks on both military and civilian targets. Together the three discover a pattern in the violence leading them to a joint mission with a lethal Turkish agent (Shiva Negar) to stop a mysterious operative (Taylor Kitsch) intent on starting a World War in the Middle East.

The film American Assassin is based on Vince Flynn's 2010 novel of the same name. 

Vince Flynn's is best known for his Mitch Rapp series, an undercover CIA counter-terrorism agent. Rapp's primary focus is thwarting terrorist attacks on the United States, and he is presented as an aggressive operative willing to take measures that are more extreme than might be considered commonly acceptable. In the film, Mitch Rapp is played by Dylan O'Brien. To this day there are 15 book in the series and American Assassin is the first book in the timeline but was written as the eleventh book. Unfortunately, Flynn died on June 19, 2013, after a three year battle with prostate cancer. Author Kyle Mills has taken over the series and wrote the last two books. The latest book in the series, Order to Kill, was released on October 11, 2016.

Michael Cuesta has directed mostly TV Series and TV Movies, but he does have some prior experience directing feature films such as: Kill the Messenger, Roadie, Tell Tale, 12 and Holding and L.I.E.

I have heard a lot about the book series and everyone I have talked to seems to love them. And I can see why, this looks like a great thriller of a man taking action into his own hands.

Like many revenge films we have seen time and time again, the main protagonist starts off as an ordinary person who then becomes this extraordinary badass killer after suffering an extreme loss. I think Dylan O'Brien looks to be a great fit for this part and will be a great step in his acting career's direction after his role in the Maze Runner franchise and Deepwater Horizon.

I am excited to see what Director Michael Cuesta does with this great screenplay and hopefully there is plenty of action to keep the story moving along. Cuesta is lucky here to have such a great cast...Michael Keaton!