Ashby

It's a cinematic cliché: lonely teenager develops bond with elderly neighbor who has a terminal illness. The twist in writer-director Tony McNamara's Ashby is that the senior here is a gruff retired CIA hit-man who enlists the boy in some unfinished business. Mickey Rourke plays the title character, a crusty sort visited by Ed (Nat Wolff), the new kid next door, who has been assigned to write a school essay based on conversations with “an old person.” Ashby is in no hurry to talk about his past, but he agrees to be interviewed if Ed will serve as his chauffeur while he redeems himself in God's eyes by rubbing out three former associates who conned him into including among his 90-odd victims an innocent man who threatened to expose their embezzlement schemes. Ed's a bright lad, but with other pressing matters—football tryouts, romancing a pretty classmate (Emma Stone), undercutting his mother's loser dates—it takes him a while to figure out what Ashby is up to on their jaunts, and even then he's torn about whether to bow out or help his newfound friend complete his mission. Unfortunately, McNamara doesn't possess the delicate touch required to successfully juggle lighthearted teen comedy with action-movie violence, or keep all of the plot threads humming along smoothly, but the film is buoyed somewhat by Rourke and Wolff, who nicely play against one another in this reasonably diverting coming-of-age dramedy. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)