Assassination Nation

2018 loud movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A hacker wreaks havoc in a small American town.

When I got my ticket, the youngster told me, "This movie is bonkers!" and I said, "Uh huh," and he repeated, "This movie is bonkers!" because apparently he didn't think I'd heard him and I answered, "Ok, thanks" because I didn't know what else to say.

It's entirely possible that I'm too old for a bonkers movie like this, but I'd also like to point out that this kid at the window was too young to be using words like "bonkers." I found almost every aspect of this--from the silly title to the oppressive score to the wasted style--irritating. Bonkers violence, bad language, and salty humor are tossed together for the sake of bonkers violence, bad language, and salty humor. Any substance is buried death beneath piles of stank and style, and there are so many distractions that it became hard to focus on any message this might have about the perils of life as a people who almost always have screens in front of their faces. It seems like it wants to tackle relevant contemporary issues--toxic masculinity, for example--but it's lured by the desire to be something really dope instead. So the messages are lost, and the narrative is borderline incoherent and incomprehensible. Clearly, this is the product of somebody who was allowed to watch way too much MTV as a child.

This movie needs to get off my lawn.

Some nice moments show that writer/director Sam Levinson has potential. A tri-colored use of split screen was almost something, and I really liked a lengthy tracking shot that lurked both inside and outside of a house as characters were being stalked.