Ashby (2015)

A coming of age story where a high school kid has to talk to an old guy for an assignment and ends up forming a sort of a friendship with his next door neighbor who has been an assassin and is about too die.It is not a very original idea, but it is a very enjoyable movie. Actually it is a bit of a more original young guy being friends with old guy story because of the whole last assassination mission. Besides all the characters are great. I also like the guy's mother played by Sarah Silverman. When she is worried Ashby is touching her son it is a very funny moment.Mickey Rourke is absolutely perfect in his role. It is a great character and he also manages to make us love him all the way. We can also see him being influenced by his younger friend. This makes the story so much sweeter when we see people in all stages of life learning from each other.

'Ashby' is yet another film lacking any sort of direction, structure, and storytelling. Is it a character film, a teen drama, or redemption story... perhaps all three? Tony McNamara brings a lot of different ideas into a script that lacks anything important to say at all.Mickey Rourke portrays the titular character Ashby, a former CIA assassin who has killed for his government because quote; "That was my job... sigh..." I suppose as a younger man he must have been a patriot and a soldier, but all that has changed over time, when he has his first heart attack and finds out he has very little time to live. His neighbor (Nat Wolff), a rather bland teenager who just moved into town with his single mom (an equally bland Sara Silverman), asks Ashby if he can write an essay about him... because quote; "You're old." And so the film unfolds at a slow and steady pace with nothing really to offer the viewer and focuses solely on a teenager who literally has nothing to complain about, yet still finds the time and energy to do so.What really upset me about this movie's direction and writing, isn't the awful story line itself, but the real lack of any message for the viewer. Outside of Micky Rouke's character coming to terms with who he was and the horrible things he'd done during his career, every single character in this movie is exactly the same at the end, as when it started out. The idea of an assassin seeking redemption through a kid writing a high school essay is laughable at the least, but putting up with the most annoying teenager in the world, makes me literally weep for future generations of screenwriters and directors. It's predictable at most times, ablaze with platitudes, and lacks anything worth watching for an hour and forty five minutes.This movie has absolutely nothing to teach anyone except that murder can be part of a geek coming to age film. He also becomes an accessory to murder, but hey... that's fine if you're friends right? I wish I could get my time back.4/10

To Filmmakers: Unless your life is in some godforsaken third world violent hellhole run by a moronic dictator who wears those ridiculous gym teacher shorts I can't imagine anything less like life than the game of football so please stop, just stop trying to make that connection.I just needed to get that out of the way first thing. Other than that I sort of liked the movie during the part that I didn't like it. Mickey Rourke and Sarah Silverman were both fun to watch, the kid not so much. He's likable enough but his role was all over the place. I never got a sense of who he really was. Was he the awkward outsider or the cool kid? The film used that ambiguity as a tool but I don't think it was very satisfying, at least not for me.Maybe there were just a few too many issues to deal with in a little high school comedy, or whatever this was. Let's just count them all up: new kid in town, dad issues, hit-man next door neighbor, mom's a slut, cutie from school likes him but for some reason he doesn't like her much, and then the football crap. I'm getting a headache just listing them. Leave out two of these and the film would have been significantly more fun.

Ashby is a departure for Mickey Rourke, as he's been kind of slumming it in B movie junk for a few years. That changes here. Rourke's cowboy machismo and brooding vibe of danger is genius and takes on a whole new light when contrasted with the bright, idiosyncratic realm of the low key indie dramedy. It's a perfect concoction of ingredients, a melding of today's millennial teen angst with the battle scarred remnants of 1990's gritty pulp fare. Here Mickey plays Ashby Holt, an ex CIA assassin quietly residing in present day suburbia. He becomes aimlessly lost when he finds out he has terminal cancer, and is given three months to live. Next door, a high school kid (Nat Wolff) who's new in town tries to fit in with his peers, and make new friends while his incredibly insecure mother (Sarah Silverman♡) also tries to.. make new friends, I guess you could say. When he gets a class project to interview an 'old person', he spots Ashby, and reaches out. Ashby needs a driver, and the two strike an amiable enough relationship that's both tragically funny and a sly statement on the addled nature of youths today. Gradually Ashby becomes sort of a father figure to him, and the bond deepens. Nat also strikes up a romance with a peculiar girl played by Emma Roberts. She's one who usually plays the bitchy bimbo, but here wonderfully surprised me by giving the quirky outsider girl just the right amount of depth and empathy. You might just not recognize her, taking on the kind of oddball role her father Eric is famous for. There's scene stealing work from Kevin Dunn as well, playing a cantankerous football coach. The film briefly falls victim to 'quirky for the sake of quirky' indie tropes, and initially I was detached and wished it would bring it in more and smarten up. No one likes too much of that hipster bullshit lol. But it does, pulling back the curtains of glib comic inaccessibility to slow itself down and distill emotional, realistic work from its actors, the wonderful script a playground for them to explore. Rourke brings the best work he's done since The Wrestler, and is nothing short of sensational. When he's given the right material, he soars higher than most actors ever dream of reaching, and he finds the regret, sympathy, coldness and wounded spirit mentality of Ashby. He NEEDS more roles like this. Nat Wolff is a bit of a 'natterer' at first and got on my nerves a touch, but he grows on you, his naive sweetness a fascinating opposite to Rourke's weary burnout sadness. Fans of Rourke (he's my second favourite actor of all time) will find a gold mine in this one, and casual viewers should enjoy it's unassuming first half, and be moved by the down to earth second act that gives the characters the full circle arc they deserve. Well done.