Ashby

Ashby (2015) is a coming-of-age dramedy you can watch online on iFILM, about a teenager and the retired CIA killer next door. Nat Wolff and Mickey Rourke play two neighbors thrown together by, of all things, a homework assignment.

Ed is the new kid in town, living with his recently single mom (Sarah Silverman) and trying not to draw attention. When a teacher tells him to interview an older person, he knocks on the door of the grim, silent man across the lawn. Ashby turns out to be a former government assassin sitting on a terminal diagnosis and a few unpaid debts to his conscience. A strange arrangement forms: Ed drives him to his errands, Ashby teaches the boy how to take a hit. Meanwhile Ed fumbles his way toward Eloise, a sharp classmate played by Emma Roberts.

This was the feature debut of writer-director Tony McNamara, later the pen behind The Favourite and Poor Things, and his dry streak is already here. Rourke underplays everything, and that worn-down gentleness is what holds the film together. Less hitman thriller, more growing-up story with a gun in the glovebox. Stream Ashby (2015) online on iFILM.