The bomb is ticking in Bond-lite thriller

THIS lively action-thriller doesn’t contain much that is surprising or original until the last ten minutes.

Until that point it might safely be described as formulaic. Nonetheless, it is written, acted and directed with considerable snap and verve.

It stars Dylan O’Brien as Mitch Rapp, who at the start of the film is getting engaged to his pretty girlfriend on an idyllic holiday beach, only for Islamist fundamentalists to arrive with assault rifles.

Their victims include . . . well, suffice to say we next meet a deadeyed Rapp 18 months later, learning how to be a one-man killing machine.

Soon he is ready to assassinate a leading jihadist in Libya, but the CIA are monitoring his movements, and realise that he might be a useful asset.

Rapp is then assigned to the agency’s legendary instructor, Stan Hurley, a ruthless son-of-agun in the mould of every CIA hard nut you’ve ever seen, played here by Michael Keaton.

The director is Michael Cuesta, an experienced TV hand who directed many of the early — and best — episodes of the excellent drama Homeland.

That’s why I half-expected a similar storyline, with the CIA using our hero to infiltrate a terrorist cell: a Rapp trap. But no. Instead, a much sillier, Bond-style narrative unfolds, in which a rogue former protege of Hurley’s is helping the Iranians get their hands on an atomic bomb and must be stopped at all costs.

American Assassin sounds like a thriller-by-numbers, and so it is, but they are superior numbers. If you plan to spend Saturday night at the movies, you could do worse.