American Ultra

The(ir) Blurb...

Small-town stoner Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) spends most of his time getting high and writing a graphic novel about a superhero monkey. What Mike doesn't know is that he was trained by the CIA to be a lethal killing machine. When the agency targets him for termination, his former handler activates his latent skills, turning the mild-mannered slacker into a deadly weapon. Now, the utterly surprised Mike must use his newfound abilities to save himself and his girlfriend from getting wasted.

Interestingly, the stoner-spy thriller American Ultra positioned a gay CIA agent as the film’s moral center. In a genre that often only includes LGBT characters as villains or one-note stereotypes, it’s refreshing to see a gay character given substance and the same type of humanizing traits as non-LGBT characters. Agent Petey Douglas breaks protocol to provide his former boss with weapons to protect herself and sleeper agent Mike, and later disregards direct orders, which would have resulted in many civilian deaths and reports the situation to superiors. Petey’s orientation is established very organically as just part of his life; he receives a text message with a picture of his partner and their dog asking when he is coming home and saying they miss him. In a workplace-set film that could easily have left out any hint of a personal life, it is notable that the creators made the choice to include an LGBT character as part of the film’s world.

The phrase...get a life...comes to mind. No mention of the violence, deception, corruption...ad nauseam. All is well...it's got a decent poof in it!