History Film / AmericanUltra

* BadassNormal: Otis is no programmed killing machine but he is a soldier who know about suppressing fire.

* YourCheatingHeart: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. Mike gets a text from "Rose" asking him to meet and when asked about it by Phoebe, he gets evasive and lies about it being an errand for work. It's basically a blatant setup for TheReveal that Mike is cheating on Phoebe...then it turns out that "Rose" is his ''male'' drug dealer. And that Rose is supply Mike with a big box of illegal fireworks that he plans to use as part of his proposal to Phoebe.

* YourCheatingHeart: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. Mike gets a text from "Rose" asking him to meet and when asked about it by Phoebe, he gets evasive and lies about it being an errand for work. It's basically a blatant setup for TheReveal that Mike is cheating on Phoebe...then it turns out that "Rose" is his ''male'' drug dealer.

* ImprobableAimingSkills: At one part, Mike performs "the ol' frying pan bullet trick," reflecting a shot from a seated position on the floor, onto a thrown pan, and into someone positioned behind him. Basically shooting perpendicular. Even Mike is amazed it worked.

* ImprovisedWeapon: Over the course of the film, Mike uses a spoon, a frying pan, an axe and various kitchen implements to dispatch members of the TOUGHGUY program. [[spoiler: In the last scene, when the Chinese gangster refers to him as "unarmed", he bursts out laughing]]

* MomentKiller: Soon after [[spoiler:Mike proposes to Phoebe, both of them get tazed and knocked out by the county police who've assembled outside the site of the final fight]].

* ScaryTeeth: Laugher. Most of his top front teeth were knocked out. He's still holding onto them, though...

-->'''Mike:''' Like, do you know what an M1 Abrams tank is? Because I know ''all'' about it. I could name like 50 tanks right now. When did I learn about tanks? And guns? And-

* BigGood: Krueger, in a way. [[spoiler:Yates authorizes the hunt on Mike without his authorization, and he appears near the end of the film to clean up loose ends. However, he spares Lasseter and allows her to use Mike as an operative]].

* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: [[spoiler:Lasseter invokes this to save herself from being executed like Yates by Krueger. She points out that the TOUGHGUY operatives were the most lethal human beings the CIA has ever been able to train, yet Mike was able to kill ''every single one of them'' - most of them in a single battle. Thus, Mike is now the best combat operative in existence, and answers to her. It spares her]].

* DamselInDistress: Played with. At one point in the film, Phoebe is captured by Yates and his crew, and spends most of the last third of the film handcuffed, slapped and hit against a wall and carted around while Yates tries to escape from Mike. However, [[spoiler:she also reveals that she has weapons training in the scene where they escape from Rose's house, and saves Mike's life by giving him the antidote for the gas]].
* DisproportionateRetribution: Yates' attempt to kill Mike is cited as being because Mike's attempts to leave his assigned place are a security risk. This would be a case of VillainHasAPoint, except for a few things: 1) Mike ''didn't know'' that he wasn't supposed to leave when he tried to make those trips. In fact, he didn't even know that he was a CIA asset, 2) the WISEMAN program was scrapped and only the CIA knew how to reactivate Mike, so his leaving town probably didn't constitute as much of a risk as Yates claimed, and 3) Mike is psychologically programmed against leaving. If he even tries, he'll have a panic attack and back out.

** Phoebe insists she's not mad that Mike's panic attack forces them to cancel their vacation, despite cursing him out at the airport. [[spoiler: Of course she's not mad. She knows that if Mike gets out of his assigned area, he'd be classified as a threat.]]

* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: [[spoiler:Lasseter invokes this to save herself from being executed like Yates by Krueger. She points out that because the ULTRA program is in shambles, that makes Mike valuable in the future... which in turn makes ''her'' valuable, as this project was essentially her baby in the CIA. It spares her]].

* XMeetsY: The plot could handily be summarized as ''PineappleExpress'' meets ''[[Film/TheBourneSeries Jason Bourne]]''. With bits of ''TheManchurianCandidate'' for classic genre flavor.

* ImprovisedWeapon: Over the course of the film, Mike uses a spoon, a frying pan, an axe and various kitchen implements to dispatch members of the TOUGHGUY program.

* Badassnormal: Otis is no programmed killing machine but he is a soldier who know about suppressing fire.

* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: Liman, West Virginia doesn't exist.

* AndTheAdventureContinues: The final scene has Mike [[spoiler:(now an official CIA operative) working with Phoebe to infiltrate and take down a Japanese mob syndicate, the resolution of which plays over the closing credits]].

** The fact that [[spoiler:Phoebe is a crackshot with a gun]], despite never hinting that they were trained in weapons, serves to be a tipoff for the audience shortly before it's revealed that [[spoiler:she has CIA training]].

* TooDumbToLive[=/=]StupidEvil: Krueger's justification for [[spoiler:executing Yates. You can see Lasseter visibly cringing the way Yates just digs his own grave telling Krueger he should be "thanking" Yates for going off the reservation and getting so many people killed, just to take one unsecured asset off the board.]]

* TheCameo[=/=]DeadStarWalking: [[spoiler:John Leguizamo appears for a grand total of two scenes as Ice (Mike's pot dealer), who shows up once to bring Mike [[ChekhovsGun some fireworks for his proposal to Phoebe]], and the second when they hide out at his house]]. He and his associates end up being [[MauveShirt anticlimactically massacred]] when TOUGHGUY operatives assault the house.