"American Ultra" R
This year there have been several parody spoofs of secret agent films, and last year had one or two also. American Ultra though it a weird hybrid with Kirsten Stewart and Jessie Eisenberg as two luckless small town stoners who accidentally activate the sleeper agent of doom.
The story seems like something Kevin Smith would do, a stoner comedy, but also a sarcastic spy caper, but it's not Smith.
The title seems like the brand of cigarettes from the 1980s although the smoke in this is either pot or fireworks. The slacker dude starts off trying to get his girlfriend and engagement trip to Hwaii, but he has a panic attack and doesn't go. Later on when he is working as a clerk in a store, a strange blonde woman comes in, playing a Bond agent or something, and activates him.
He is this store clerk ala Clerks, some toughs come to his store and try to mess with his car, he kills them and then panics and calls his girlfriend to come rescue him. The police then lock him in their jail, but more agents arrive to dispatch the police, and then the secret angets storm into town to stop their rogue asset, the dude.
A little of Pineapple Express is tossed in here, but unlike in that movie, the uneven drama that makes up their second half is present through this whole one, and the tone never turns completely comedic. It stays ironic and brooding.
The girlfriend may not be what she seems, but Stewart is really not up to the acting challenge of playing a convincing plant from another agency, so it is hard to tell what say another actress would have done in the role.
Eisenberg has been playing manic characters for years, so it's natural for him to play another. He seems more used to playing that then playing a super butt kicking action hero.
The story seems to be a spoof on the spy thriller, the X files, and a little of the film Slackers, and any number of Smith's work.
It's not a bad movie and is worth a rental.
Review by Adam Browne
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