Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Walton Coggins, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, Tony Hale, Stuart Greer, Michael Papajohn.
There are films that will come to the cinema, present themselves as being slightly off beat and which despite the overwhelming reasons why you shouldn’t like them, you can’t help but be drawn to their physical being. The same goes with some actors, you are unsure to why they have risen so highly up the scale of Box office requirements but you cannot help but like their performances on screen. When these two states of mind mix and merge, that feeling is intensified to the point where you really are not surprised if the sky turns a shade of purple and a lottery win is on the cards.
For American Ultra the premise should not work at all, an action film that wants to be a comedy or a comedy film dipping its sizeable fists into the world of action; in any other time or with any other actors taking the lead it would have no doubt sank into the realm of tragedy as the alien forces doling out the implausible principle were taken out the back of the cinema and bound and gagged for all cinematic eternity.
Yet the story of a stoned out shop clerk being hunted by national forces, a tale of a man who has no idea why people want him dead as he suffers from anxiety attacks and who smokes more weed than is absolutely necessary is one that you cannot take your eyes away from and in the capable hands of Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, John Leguizamo and the much admired Connie Britton, American Ultra works a treat.
What resonates throughout is just how the system is able to take the calmness and laid back attitude to life and turn it against the person seeking nothing more than solitude or an existence of uncomplicated joy. It is a reminder that at all times there are those who would do anything in their power to take a person’s life for the sheer bliss of extinguishing a different belief, whether spiritual or religious, and for just not wanting to be part of a system that demands more and more from us.
In every way American Ultra should not work but because of the belief in Jesse Eisenberg to pull of such a part, it succeeds at the very heart of cinema, escapism and humour in one complete package. A wonderfully diverting achievement!
Ian D. Hall