American Ultra Review

"Michael Howell. Asset designation: Ultra. You were part of the 'Lavender Thistle' program. We induced high-level tactical and linguistic conditioning using a proprietary blend of psilocybin, LSD, and a neuro-kinetic catalyst. You’re not a stoner, Michael. You're a weapon who was given a drug habit to keep you docile."

And for the first time in his life, Mike Howell believed he deserved to be happy. American Ultra

He broke a man's arm with a copy of Moby-Dick from the lost-and-found bin. He disarmed a second using only a tangled cassette tape and the centrifugal force of spinning it around his finger. He kicked a flashbang back through a doorway using a roller skate, timing the rebound to the millisecond. "Michael Howell

He shuffled to the register. His girlfriend, Phoebe, was waiting in the rusted Toyota Corolla outside, sketching a comic strip about a depressed sloth on her thigh with a ballpoint pen. She was the anchor. The only thing that stopped Mike’s brain from spiraling into a fractal terror about things like "taxes" and "the eventual heat death of the universe." He broke a man's arm with a copy

Lasseter saw it in his eyes—not the cold killer. Something worse. A man who had been to the bottom of his own mind and found a door he chose not to open. That restraint was more terrifying than any violence.

But he wasn't a machine. He was bleeding. His mind was splitting—the terrified stoner and the cold assassin screaming over control.