I've heard good things about the Vince Flynn book series featuring Mitch Rapp, a kick ass, young, take-no-prisoners secret forces soldier.
I hope the books are better than the movie, cause this first Rapp film adventure is a major stink bomb.
Rapp is a young man proposing on the beach when extremist Muslim terrorists attack the vacation spot, killing many tourists including his new fiance.
Within about ten minutes, we see him go into seclusion and then emerge as a terrorist hunting, one-man killing machine.
He's then recruited and put into a super secret, very predictable US forces group managed by tough ex-Navy Seal Stan Hurley.
Poor Michael Keaton does what he can with the character of Hurley, who is part Mickey from "Rocky", part Mr. Myagi and 100% stereotypical, oozing macho dialogue and eye rolling one-liners.
The worst part of the film is Dylan O'Brien as Rapp. O'Brien is apparently popular in "The Maze Runner" and "Teen Wolf" but I admit I've never had any interest in either and I think he's in way over his head trying to launch a film series.
Maybe I just prefer my action heroes look older than 17, but no matter how much they muscle him up and have him grow lots of facial hair, O'Brien always looks like he wondered in from High School Musical. Bad casting, bad writing.
The villains are okay, the concluding action sequence is pretty well executed but by then, my eyes hurt from rolling them every 5 minutes when somebody drops an idiotic line of dialogue or does something illogical in service of the screenplay.
At one point, the bad guy pulls off Keaton's fingernails in graphic detail one at a time to try and extract information. I found myself wondering if I'd go through that rather than see a sequel to this mess.
I don't think I need fingernails THAT bad....
Dumb beyond dumb, it gets a D.
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