The American
Director: Anton Corbijn
With: George Clooney, Violante Placido, Paolo Bonacelli, Johan Leysen, Thekla Reuten
First, the good things. The movie is beautiful, filmed mostly in Abruzzo hill country in Italy. George Clooney is in superb physical shape. That is all.
A thriller about a man, Jack or maybe Edward (Clooney), who builds weapons for assassins on an as-needed basis, and is disconnected from real life. He escapes being killed in Sweden, goes to Italy, and calls Pavel (Leysen), who is maybe his boss or something. He tells Pavel that he wants out. Ha ha. Then, he disappears into the hills.
Then...the...movie...crawls...along...like...an...anesthetized...snail. We see Jack/Edward befriend a local priest (Bonacelli) who says all the expected things without knowing anything about Jack/Edward except that he is tormented by something. This goes nowhere, but gives Jack/Edward someone to have dialog with in this mostly silent film.
Jack/Edward always uses prostitutes to satisfy his manly needs, and meets Clara (Placido) at the local hookshop. She is way above the other women in the joint in looks and class, but this is a movie. And, of course, she falls in love with Jack/Edward .
There is a lo-o-o-ng scene of Jack/Edward building a weapon for a woman (Reuten), and modifying ammunition for it, which is both dull and tedious. There is a love scene between Clara and Jack/Edward which is the high point of the film. Don’t be out getting popcorn while this is going on.
Then, at the end, we are presented with something resembling bitter irony. I would much rather have been presented with a plot that was not such thin gruel. Clooney can’t bring this off, this inner torment, and appears to be sleepwalking. The character he played in Up in the Air was a similar empty individual, but that worked much better, possibly because we had something to care about other than the fact that he is George Clooney.
Save your money.
C-