Assassination Nation

Neon | Release Date: September 21, 2018

6.0	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 54 Ratings

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bigzak708Oct 17, 2018

Visually appealing at times, but that couldn't save this godawful story line. It was completely walkout-able. I stuck it out to see if there were any redeeming qualities and I assure you there are none. Completely not the movie that youVisually appealing at times, but that couldn't save this godawful story line. It was completely walkout-able. I stuck it out to see if there were any redeeming qualities and I assure you there are none. Completely not the movie that you expect. Action scenes are short, lame, and definitely too little too late. If you want to waste time of your life and money for a film you absolutely will hate, well this is it.… Expand

3 of 3 users found this helpful30

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BroyaxApr 14, 2019

Le film démarre coolos avec voix off et ambiance relâchée des jeunes bécasses accros aux réseaux sociaux dans la petite ville provinciale de faux culs... On nous promet monts et merveilles, du sexe, des culottes, du sang et de la violence etLe film démarre coolos avec voix off et ambiance relâchée des jeunes bécasses accros aux réseaux sociaux dans la petite ville provinciale de faux culs... On nous promet monts et merveilles, du sexe, des culottes, du sang et de la violence et on s'en doute (ou on espère) des litres de pure irrévérence ainsi que de... satire ?!

Puis, au bout d'une cinquantaine de minutes au cours desquelles il ne s'est strictement rien passé, on comprend qu'on s'est bien foutu de notre gueule :c'est juste un pétard mouillé, chiant comme un chacal crevé au bord de la route, car finalement, ça démarre quand cette merde ? Juste du remplissage et du meublage à n'en plus finir, de la fausse provoc' faisandée d'un pauvre film qui s'agite comme une attention whore pathétique et lamentable.… Expand

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

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DufreshestSep 23, 2018

Hello Sigmund Freud (Assassination Nation Review)
Assassination Nation is a candy apple dripping out of a bucket full of Freudian theory sprinkled with the Salem Witch Trials. The film definitely feels like it is attempting to philosophizeHello Sigmund Freud (Assassination Nation Review)
Assassination Nation is a candy apple dripping out of a bucket full of Freudian theory sprinkled with the Salem Witch Trials. The film definitely feels like it is attempting to philosophize and reminisce in the cadence of Lions for Lambs, Pulp Fiction, Carrie, Requiem for a Dream, Nerve, and is sending a lot of contradictory messages that work well if the film is attempting to depict the confusion Generation Z might seemingly be drowning in as the result of prior generations in a technologically fraught age.

I'm not crazy about the cinematography and film editing. Did someone use the unlimited ammo cheat code? I feel like the film is attempting to do a lot. I rather re-watch the UK version of Skins than ever re-watch Assassination Nation (that show is good - and touches on topics in a sensible manner - and feels like an inspiration to this film).
Overall Grade: C-

K.D.

If you're into Poetry and other bits of creativity, check out my Instagram: @Dufreshest.… Expand

2 of 4 users found this helpful22

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marco34laSep 22, 2018

This movie has absolutely NO redeeming value. I sat through the movie in agony it was so bad. there were all of 5 people in the movie in hollywood, ca... which is a RARITY. You could hear people sighing in an exacerbated manner and fidgeting.This movie has absolutely NO redeeming value. I sat through the movie in agony it was so bad. there were all of 5 people in the movie in hollywood, ca... which is a RARITY. You could hear people sighing in an exacerbated manner and fidgeting. All i kept thinking was HOW, HOW, HOW do movies like this get made at all?????… Expand

5 of 11 users found this helpful56

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TVJerryOct 2, 2018

The town of Salem goes crazy after a hacker starts exposing people's secrets and 4 girls get the blame and the brunt of it. This is a cross between a witch-hunt mentality and the cruel violence of the "Purge" movies. The opening screamsThe town of Salem goes crazy after a hacker starts exposing people's secrets and 4 girls get the blame and the brunt of it. This is a cross between a witch-hunt mentality and the cruel violence of the "Purge" movies. The opening screams trigger warnings that promise a transgressive, terrifying experience. Most of it never develops to a level of shock and it takes almost an hour of dumb dialogue before the juicy stuff happens. There are some showy directorial touches and a few moments of suspense, but the overall effect is a jumbled, disoriented attempt to make statements about today's technological morass. One interesting note: this is the first major teen flick that features a trans actor (Hari Nef) playing a mostly-accepted trans student.… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

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JLuis_001Nov 15, 2018

Destroying fragile male egos, Assassination Nation manages to emerge more or less graceful from its unconventional mix of genres but in one way or another is certainly counterproductive when its message of feminine empowerment ends up beingDestroying fragile male egos, Assassination Nation manages to emerge more or less graceful from its unconventional mix of genres but in one way or another is certainly counterproductive when its message of feminine empowerment ends up being an inevitable bloody and violent male fantasy.

I wouldn't say it was bad but it doesn't have much to excel either.… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

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LamontRaymondSep 26, 2018

I actually thought this film was a LOT of fun. Never boring, visual pyrotechnics, and provocative as hell! Don't see it if you're too sensitive on any side.

3 of 10 users found this helpful37

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DQ_SlotkinsOct 1, 2018

Filled with good conversations, frighteningly real, a good script, and great performances (Hari Nef practically steals the show as Bex).
This is the movie that the Purge flicks wishes it were. Thoughtful and fun.

1 of 8 users found this helpful17

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Bertaut1Dec 5, 2018

Hilarious, disturbing, and unexpectedly intelligent - if you don't get too triggered

Centred around a quartet of unapologetically shallow teen girls more concerned with getting likes on Instagram than decent grades, and culminating in anHilarious, disturbing, and unexpectedly intelligent - if you don't get too triggered

Centred around a quartet of unapologetically shallow teen girls more concerned with getting likes on Instagram than decent grades, and culminating in an orgy of gender-demarcated violence, Assassination Nation seems to set out to try to offend everyone - from the social justice warriors on the left to the second amendment fetishisers on the right, from Millennial snowflakes to Baby boomers who can't get their head around why going viral is so important. The satirical ire of writer/director Sam Levinson, however, is aimed more specifically at those who tend to see the proclivities of sexually "aggressive" (i.e., sexually confident) young women through misogyny-tinted glasses (the type of insecure males who believe the term "toxic masculinity" is an oxymoron). It does run out of steam in its third act, and, overall, it tries to take on too many issues. Nevertheless, it's a smart and humorous commentary on a society becoming ever more defined by online hysteria and the concomitant erosion of traditional concepts of privacy.

The film tells the story of four relatively normal high-school friends, Lily (Odessa Young), Bex (Hari Nef), Em (Abra), and Sarah (Suki Waterhouse). When half of the population of their home town is hacked, and all their data made public, the quartet, and Lily in particular, find themselves at the dangerous centre of a rapidly escalating situation, as the town becomes increasingly militarised and polarised.

Assassination Nation works primarily, if not wholly, by way of exaggeration, hyperbole, and embellishment. Taking as its starting point the fear that female agency (particularly regarding sexuality) can instil in the patriarchal status quo, it hypothesises what might happen if that fear is pushed to the extreme. In this sense, Levinson addresses how previously frowned-upon right-wing and/or misogynist views have gained a degree of social acceptability and mainstream visibility during Donald Trump's presidency.

Levinson sets the tone immediately, opening the film with a rapidly edited montage that shows a series of clips, each one labelled with a requisite "trigger warning", including toxic masculinity, the male gaze, sexism, violence, gore, and fragile male egos. This abrasive, confrontational, self-reflexive style continues for much of the film, which is purposely designed to confront, provoke, and challenge.

How the film deals with the male gaze is especially interesting. An early shot shows the four girls walking into school in slow motion as the camera starts at their feet and slowly pans up their bare legs before moving around behind them. You couldn't get a more textbook example of a cinematic male gaze. However, towards the end of the film, the exact same shot is repeated, but in this instance, the girls are effectively going to war, something the film draws to the audience's attention by replicating the form of the earlier shot - the male gaze is reproduced so as to satirise and ridicule it.

Another aesthetically interesting scene occurs after the data dump, but prior to people turning on one another, learning that her best friend has been mocking her behind her back, an acquaintance of the central quartet takes a baseball bat, finds her friend in the school gym, and cracks her over the head. The scene starts out normal enough, but soon the camera turns upside-down and we see the girl standing against an unrealistically large American flag. Turning the camera upside-down like this mid-shot and using the flag in this way indicates that there has been some kind of paradigm shift. Indeed, speaking of the American flag, it's a recurring motif, but we rarely see it without a gun nearby. Make of that what you will.

One of the film's strengths, but also one of its weaknesses, is the sheer volume of issues with which it engages; misogyny, feminism, fempowerment, social media, sexual assault, #MeToo, bullying, gun culture, toxic masculinity, the male gaze, racism, gang mentality, digital privacy, desensitisation, mansplaining. Unfortunately, because it tries to deal with so much, many of the issues are only glanced at. This has the side-effect of making it seem thematically scattershot. Aside from dealing with too many themes, if the film has a defining flaw, it's that the last act essentially turns into The Purge (2013), wherein the girls turn into the leaders of a vigilante group facing off against the intolerance of right-wing jingoism, a conflict drawn primarily, although not exclusively, along gender lines. It's a disappointingly simplistic dénouement given the complexity of the preceding narrative.

Depicting a cultural anxiety that is uniquely contemporary, Assassination Nation taps into something inherently new in human culture, and is an unexpectedly smart film examining weighty topics of great importance to the current socio-political moment.… Expand

0 of 4 users found this helpful04

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Frankwoods23789Feb 27, 2021

Sam Levison do a great job in this amazing film that blows your mind and makes you crazy.

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

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RalfbergsAug 21, 2019

Weirdly enough was better than expected. Like I liked the social commentary on media and how everyone nowadays does stupid stuff without thinking about consequences but also how people sometimes get mistreated wrongfully just because ofWeirdly enough was better than expected. Like I liked the social commentary on media and how everyone nowadays does stupid stuff without thinking about consequences but also how people sometimes get mistreated wrongfully just because of something on internet. Like internet trolling becomes real life bullying… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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bataguilaMay 6, 2019

Las viejas estan buenas, la historia empieza bien, luego se vuelve una mamada, y el transexual le da en la madre a todo

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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Sosmooth1982Jul 3, 2023

Crazy ass movie. What people can really be driven to do when necessary is crazy. I liked this movie.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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geewahJan 6, 2021

I get the social commentary this flick is making but this is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be (Horror, Comedy, Action) and for that we are left with this mess.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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