You may not know what American Ultra is, and that’s because I don’t think the studio knew either. A late August release date is never a vote of confidence, and the trailers were two-minute blasts of vape smoke, concentrated hits of Youth Culture douchery.
Going in, I was not enthused. But American Ultra turns out to be a shaggy, likable action-comedy that was probably pitched with the question “What if Jason Bourne was a stoner?”
Jesse Eisenberg (no, not Scott Pilgrim; no, not Andy Samberg; yeah, that guy) plays Mike, and Kristen Stewart (Clouds of Sils Maria) plays Phoebe. Mike and Phoebe are dating. Mike has a panic disorder; Phoebe shows remarkable patience with his frequent attacks. They live in Liman, West Virginia (not a real place, but a cheeky joke) and work dead-end jobs under fluorescent lights.
The early stretches of this movie feature a sincere, believable depiction of what it means to love someone with mental issues. So sincere that there’s an extraneous in medias res opening that promises Action to Come, as if the filmmakers were afraid people would walk out. That insecurity about simply letting the story unfold means a lot of intercutting between screwball CIA hijinks and this grounded Mike-and-Phoebe material before they actually intersect: the former is bizarrely flat and clumsy, and the latter feels like a different movie entirely in comparison. If the intent was to juxtapose two very different worlds, it comes too early to have any power.
It quickly becomes apparent that Mike is some kind of government experiment — in a stoned paranoia he questions whether he’s “a robot” — as the town of Liman is overrun with CIA operatives (led by Topher Grace, giving an impotent, blustery performance) intent on stamping him out. American Ultra becomes a sort of siege movie, with set pieces taking place in the spaces — a kitchen, a jail cell, a department store, a parking lot — that formerly defined Mike and Phoebe’s quotidian existence. In one way, this could be read as an exploded metaphor for Mike’s mental illness and the way it's crept into every aspect of his life, but then it’s revealed that maybe the whole mental illness thing isn’t what it seems. And if you try to unpack the subtext, you’ll hit a brick wall at the ending.
Luckily, the politics of American Ultra are — and it gives me inordinate joy to say this after a remarkably fallow summer — secondary to its immediate pleasures. Eisenberg and Stewart (who knew the kids from Twilight would soon chart fascinating careers) possess convincing, sweet chemistry that proves enough to carry the film through anything, and as their story becomes more closely entwined with the CIA plotline the narrative finds its footing. Director Nima Nourizadeh (Project X) has an interesting eye: he captures his leads’ chemistry through small details that feel lived-in, like Phoebe stopping Mike from nervously tapping his leg with her foot. And he keeps things moving along, which is no small feat: at 96 blessedly improv-free minutes, the movie is fleeter than, say, Pineapple Express.
Now, Nourizadeh is no action prodigy, but he does try: the fights are wisely edited around the fact that Jesse Eisenberg is no Van Damme, and that means that aside from one sequence near the end that dabbles in digitally-assisted long takes, they consistently cut on hits to create impact. Maybe it’s a nod to the Bourne movies, which created fight scenes through lightning-quick montage. Rather than the surgical wide-shot precision of something like Haywire, Nourizadeh uses gore to punctuate his cut-heavy fights, whether it’s a spoon through the throat or a shotgun blast to the stomach. The results provide cringeworthy impact.
For a film that bore all the telltale signs of cynical youth-targeted nonsense, this is remarkably honest in its best moments. The strong cast (the Walt Goggins quotient is delightfully high, cancelling out a baffling John Leguizamo) anchors the film in its shakier moments, and genuine heart turns American Ultra, improbably, into an affecting piece of work.
3 out of 5 stars.
Rated R
Directed by Nima Nourizadeh
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Connie Britton, Topher Grace, John Leguizamo, Walton Goggins.
Opens Friday, August 21.
This article appears in Aug 20-26, 2015.