Parents' Guide to American Assassin

Based on a novel by Vince Flynn, this thriller adds "American" to its title in an effort to sound important or entertaining; it's not. Rather, American Assassin is clumsily written and directed and frequently absurd. Playing a crusty, veteran agent, Keaton brings the film its only real personality, but he's not enough. The rest of the cast, including O'Brien, is hopelessly bland.

Four writers -- including noted filmmaker Edward Zwick -- are credited with cobbling together the screenplay, which consists mainly of laughably bad expositional dialogue and awkward attempts to cover up plot holes. Director Michael Cuesta, who previously made the excellent Kill the Messenger, surprises with his lack of skill here, resorting to muddy cinematography and jigsaw editing to distract from the lack of coherence. The ending is especially awful, not only in its drastic departure from the movie's already ill-fated logic, but also in its blatant disregard for humanity in general.