American Assassin

18 cert, 112 min This spy thriller behaves like (and is about as much fun to spend time with as) an angry wasp.

Michael Keaton leads a black ops squad specialising in turning men with nothing to lose into pitiless killers. His star pupil is Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’brien), whose fiancée was

murdered by jihadis on an Ibiza beach. This attack – the film’s opening sequence – is one of the most counterproductive grabs for audience sympathy I’ve ever seen. When a film begins this cynically, who cares where it goes next?

Mitch’s grief gets the CIA’S attention; they take him to Keaton, and thence across Europe to reclaim stolen weapons-grade uranium from Middle Easterners. There’s an attempt to clear some of the macho fug by casting a black actress as

Mitch’s strait-laced handler, but the film’s gender politics are better embodied by the villain’s mistress, who wanders around topless before being machine-gunned.

The plot bends over backwards to let Mitch commit extreme violence on women – shooting one who appears to be heavily pregnant, drowning another in a bathtub.

Michael Cuesta’s film seems to have a certain target audience in mind, and it’s probably not one you’d want to be considered a part of.