The American (2010)

This movie has been unfairly judged by IMDB members. People are jealous of George Clooney, and the life he has created for himself. Full disclosure - this is one of my favorite movies. I love the minimal dialogue - it creates a certain tone and realism. I love the soundtrack - impossible to find, but worth the search. I love the cinematography - you can watch this film in HD on mute and it is still enjoyable. And, then there is Violante Placido - one of the sexiest women ever captured on film.

Here's the thing - if you want an exciting movie about a trained killer with tons of dialogue and action, watch The Bourne Identity, or a James Bond film, or Bad Boys II. The American is not an over-the-top action movie and it has no larger-than-life characters. For that exact reason, it is an outstanding film.

RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 1/1 Casting - 1/1 Directing - 1/1 Story - 1/1 Writing/Screenplay - 1/1

Total Base Score = 5

Modifiers (+ or -) Originality: 0.5 Cinematography: 1 Music/Soundtrack: 0.5 Believability/Consistency: 1 A Personal Favorite: 1

Total RealReview Rating: 9

Fmovies: This is not the massive action thrill ride you might expect. Instead, it is a slow, character-driven look at an aging assassin. Clooney is good, but it is questionable to have him play a stone-faced killer when the actor is at his best when he utilizes his compelling charm. The best part of the movie is the beautiful cinematography, which highlights the stunning Italian countryside. It adds to the whole Euro indie fell that the film has. The American is pretty slow at times, but the shift in tone is somewhat refreshing.

The American (2010), directed by Anton Corbijn, is a vehicle for the talents of George Clooney. Clooney is too tough, too handsome, and too much the strong, silent type to do well as a gentle, caring human being. Accordingly, director Corbijn has typecast him as a professional assassin.

Unfortunately for his character, Jack, "the Swedes" are after him. The film begins in a beautiful Scandinavian location where Jack avoids being killed, and kills his would-be assassins. Unfortunately, this causes him to commit an inexcusably violent crime against an innocent person. The attempt on his life also causes him to hide out in a small Italian village, where he is "The American."

In the village he meets three people. Two of them are pretty much from Central Casting--a kindly priest, played well by Paolo Bonacelli, and a hooker with a heart of gold, the beautiful Violante Placido. The third person's role is more surprising--Thekla Reuten, as Mathilde, surely the world's most attractive female professional assassin.

The plot isn't terribly creative and, in fact, it's somewhat confusing. However, the movie is worth seeing, in my opinion, for the excellent acting that Clooney brings to his role. He is a man who is never at ease, never at rest, and clearly no longer comfortable with his role as a hired killer and gunsmith for hired killers. He is always (literally) looking over his shoulder, and probably will be forever. Not a happy profession, and not a happy life.

Reviewers have remarked about the beautiful scenery in this movie, which I did not appreciate on the small screen. However, the acting and plot come across well enough on DVD. The film isn't worth seeking out, unless you have a particular interest in this genre. However, it has some episodes of intense action, and it's never boring.

The American fmovies. The first thing some people (though not all) coming out of The American may say is "It's... slow." They may be missing the idea behind the film. It's not about making an action-packed thriller (one critic putting the cheesy pun "Less Jason Bourne and more Jason Boring" is foolish to make that comparison), and if you need that this particular weekend of Labor Day then Robert Rodriguez's Machete should suffice with that. This is a film with a European sensibility- it even has the director Anton Corbijn from the Netherlands- and is more about the internal conflict and his mechanical, cold nature than anything to do with a straightforward plot. The American is never confusing, and only for those who are looking for something with a huge shot of adrenaline (which, to be fair, the trailer doesn't do a good job of setting up) will feel let down or bored. It's a work that asks to adjust your expectations for a dramatic thriller. To give a much more apt comparison, it's like Jean-Pierre Melville taking a crack at Jarmusch's the Limits of Control. Yeah, that's more like it.

Another thing that makes Corbijn's work so appealing is his star, who is really George Clooney the "actor" this time. It's startling to consider, though sometimes easy to forget, how much range Clooney actually has. In some roles he does go by on his movie-star charm (Ocean's movies) or sometimes plays with that image (Up in the Air) or is just plain goofy (work with the Coen brothers). A performance like this is more in line with Michael Clayton, and it is one of his most memorable. He comes in doing a kind of Alain Delon impersonation (again, Melville comes to mind with his often leading figure), and his Jack character is a smooth operator, a killer who is only cold-blooded due to years of detachment and people around him that he becomes 'friends' with getting killed. The basic set-up is that he's in Italy lying low after a snafu in Sweden, and is given a job to put together a gun for an assassin. Along the way he meets a prostitute and the two become close. Maybe too close.

There is predictability in the narrative, but that's not what Corbijn and Clooney are going for. Anyone can take the old 'one last job' or 'don't fall in love or get close' kind of thing. In fact just two years ago, on this precise weekend, one saw a lackluster action-packed equivalent, Bangkok Dangerous, come out with just a similar thing. Corbjin, taking from a screenplay based on the book by Martin Booth (formerly called A Very Private Gentleman aptly enough), makes this about a man who has had his life chipped away bit by bit from this line of work. He doesn't always kill, but he can, or he is professionally able to get other people to kill. One of the key things to look for is how Clooney acts, calmly and assuredly, and how simply Corbjin films him, as Jack puts together the gun and assembles the pieces. It's like a well-oiled, impersonal machine. The question becomes: how human can this man be, can he connect with someone else?

These are questions that don't usually fly in Hollywood fare, certainly not even in other big Clooney-vehicle spectacles like the Oceans movies. The amount of restraint is remarkable, but how Corbjin keeps things eerily peaceful and leisurely paces is what's really incredible. Some have also compared it to 70's crime thrillers, and that's not unfounded. The action that does come out- and there are, to be fair, a f

The American (2010)

Like many George Clooney movies, this one is cinematically superb. You can pick the obvious, like his "Good Night and Good Luck" which he directed and had filmed in gorgeous black and white, or "Solaris" for director Soderbergh's lyrical if romanticized sensibility. Or "Syriana," "O Brother," "Three Kings," and "The Thin Red Line" all in the last fifteen years, all filmed with love, and generally with good effect.

What this means is he is more than an actor, he's an influence behind the scenes. And he's good for the movies (the industry), even if sometimes he pushes his movies into a slickness that is dulling. And that might be the flaw in "The American," the reason why this doesn't quite rise to the poetry it intends. There are aspects that make it one of those films that will view really well fifty years from now. In fact, a lot of it is wordless and so it will be culturally timeless. But it also lacks that daring taut emptiness or plain beautiful long pace of its better intentions. That is, it doesn't go far enough.

"The American" is not about much, in a way. There is the LeCarre sense of a specialized spy alone in a dangerous world, and it's the aloneness that leads to lots of inner thoughts, an attempt to figure out what really matters in his life. And that's why it works in a bucolic way. The ostensible plot is about one final professional job the man has to do, making a highly specialized gun. There are enough scenes of him working on it on a kitchen table, almost caressing the machinery of it, high in a mountain village in Italy, that we can appreciate it on a simple level of craft.

There are women (always too beautiful for their own good) and there are evil men on his tail (ruthless and never quite as clever as Clooney). In other words, there are the usual elements of this kind of world. But most of the time the movie takes its hold on a more direct, sensory level. Some people will find that simply boring. Not enough "happens." But if you let it envelop you, and if you aren't in a hurry, and if you can see it on a larger screen (to maximize those sensory effects), it might really impress you.

Finally, it has to be admitted that the plot is a bit of a borrowing from "Day of the Jackal." Some of the acting is mediocre, too, but not Clooney, and not his one main sexual interest, played by Violante Placido, though she doesn't have a big role. The countryside is so beautiful you might be satisfied just with that, actually. Sit back and watch.

This was my second time around and I didn't realize it and I almost didn't keep going because the simple plot (with lots of peripheral characters) is important, and I remembered a couple of the big twists. But the movie has such a beautiful, flowing narrative pace and visual fluidity I ended up watching it again, every minute. And I probably liked it more this time, not worried about the events as much as how they were shown.

The publicity from The American suggests it is an action and adventure film, when it is in fact a melancholic and deep drama.I liked The American very much, but I perfectly understand why its slow rhythm and calm narrative would make it inaccessible to those people who expect to see shootouts and explosions.And that is not a problem from the film or from the people, but from the distributors, who did not know how to sell this movie.

The American is developed parsimoniously, dividing its time in the methodic way in which the main character constructs a rifle; the flourishing romance among two people who are hungry of affection; and the occasional moments of suspense.Oh, and we also have conversations between the main character and a priest, which contribute to reveal the psychology from the first one mentioned.And all that is framed by the perfect Italian locations, which are full of atmosphere and detail, but without becoming into the idealized brochures from advertising agencies we have seen in movies which were also set in that country (such as Letters to Juliet and Under the Tuscan Sun).I would have said that is an unusual style for director Anton Corbjin, who made many video-clips of Metallica, U2 and Depeche Mode...if he had not already shown his firm hand and measured vision in the excellent film Control.

In order to make a relaxed narrative like the one from The American to work, we need a good actor in the leading role, so that we can perceive the thoughts from the main character in an almost intuitive way.Fortunately, George Clooney is one of those actors, and his brilliant performance in The American is one of the best attributes from this movie.The rest of the cast also made a good work, highlighting Violante Placido, Johan Leysen and Thekla Reuten.

The brief sequences from The American which could be considered as "action" look almost anti-climatic...like an interruption in the paused routine from the main character.And this is one of the few movies in which the romance is not used as a forced ornament, but as an integral part from the screenplay.The only negative element from The American is that there are a few scenes which feel out of context.However, that minor fail did not avoid me from having a fascinating time with The American, which I very enthusiastically recommend with the warning that you do not have to expect shootouts and explosions.