Ashby (film)

High-school nerd Ed Wallis (Nat Wolff) enters into a friendship with his neighbor, Ashby (Mickey Rourke), a retired CIA assassin who only has a few months to live. The film is a coming of age/approaching death comedy drama.

Ashby initially tells Ed that he is a retired napkin salesman. Ed realizes he's more than that when he finds multiple passports with Ashby's photo, and cupboards full of weapons.

In June 2014, a casting call was held for extras.[4] On June 27, 2014 as the production began on the film, more actors joined the film which include Michael Lerner, Kevin Dunn and Zachary Knighton.[5]

The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 19, 2015.[2] In May 2015, it was announced Paramount Pictures had acquired international distribution rights involving United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland.[11] That same day, it was announced the film would receive an on-demand and theatrical release in fall of 2015.[11] Paramount teamed up with The Film Arcade for U.S theatrical distribution.[3] The film was released in a limited release and through video on demand on September 25, 2015.[3]

Ashby received mixed reviews from film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 52%, based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 5.51/10.[12] On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 46 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[13]

Dennis Harvey of Variety gave the film a mixed review, writing : "Starring Mickey Rourke as a retired CIA assassin turned improbable mentor to Nat Wolff’s next-door-neighbor misfit, “Ashby” is a genre jumble that makes half-baked use of high-school sports, crime comedy, teen romance and other formulae to mildly diverting ends that are never quite convincing or funny enough. Paramount launched a limited theatrical rollout on Sept. 25, simultaneous with on-demand availability, but Aussie tube scribe Tony McNamara's U.S. feature will definitely fare best as a viable if innocuous cable/rental time-filler.[14]

Kate Erbland of The Playlist for Indiewire.com also gave the film a mixed review, writing : "It's inevitable that “Ashby” will squish together its two most important plots —Ashby’s mysterious quest and Ed’s attempts to be a football star— but McNamara attempts to keep the movie ticking right along, and for all its half-cocked plotlines, “Ashby” is able to maintain a consistently humorous and light tone. Ed and Ashby’s worldview is more than a bit skewed, but so is the film’s, and it works well enough to keep the film entertaining and bouncy.[15]

The film was released on video on demand, as well as opening in 15 theaters, the film debuted with a poor weekend total of $4,631, with a per-theater average of $309.[1]

• Ashby at IMDb