Killer Instincts

Director Michael Cuesta on making American Assassin

- Fred Schruers

 MICHAEL CUESTA IS in the lobby of a production house in downtown Manhattan bearing an amiable expression—and the slightly harried air that is a film director’s almost unavoidable fate. In post production for his movie American Assassin, which was released by CBS Films and Lionsgate on September 15, he shuttles between the sound mix studio some blocks uptown and this editing outpost by the Holland Tunnel. Earlier in the week, he had bounced over to Long Beach on the California coast to attend an enthusiastically received test screening.

Audiences at test screenings are often brought in with little or no information as to what they’ll see, but when American Assassin hits the marketplace it will draw from the considerable fan base of the late author Vince Flynn, whose gaggle of best-selling books center on fictional counter terrorist CIA hero Mitch Rapp—here brought to life by Dylan O’Brien (Maze Runner). The cast is filled out by Michael Keaton as the caustic and fierce trainer of CIA recruits, Taylor Kitsch as an operative, and Sanaa Lathan and David Suchet playing higher-ups.