Philip Matthews
over at Second Sight likes
The American. I did too but there were holes in the story before anyone started shooting. The movie is based on
A Very Private Gentlemen, one of Martin Booth's late works. The author describes gunmaking as heavy manual labour, like blacksmithing, and hides his protagonist in an isolated Italian village - which works if Jack is an anonymous craftsman but not if, as in the film, he's a pursued hit man. Being the only American in a village makes you That Guy Everyone Is Looking For; unlike Matt Damon's Bourne, George is too glam to ever be an everyman,
Out of Sight notwithstanding. Viewers were told not to worry about this because the movie is an exercise in Style but it did drive me crazy, especially when some of the problems could have been fixed with a few strokes of the pen. Still,
The American's heart is in the right place and so is the camera: it's a big, open, chilly movie with more than a few locked-off frames that recall director Anton Corbijn's still work. The setting is new Europe, its generic eateries and phone booths a pleasant contrast to the hills and streams. Cinematographer Martin Ruhe tries to keep things claustrophobic but can't help but be seduced by the open scenery, which is a character all by itself. How nice it is to see mountains in a movie without a fictional battle being waged across them.
George Clooney co-produces with a vision of creating a character different from the type he usually plays, so kudos to him. Silent and staring, his Jack is the anti-George; almost comically so, at moments -- you keep expecting him to crack a joke. Jack is intentionally brooding and solitary but Clooney not talking is a waste of natural resources, like Harrison Ford sitting on his hands -- like the similarly petite Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney
is his speaking voice. While the actor's star power frees him to experiment with his performance the production is riddled with the same defensive, let's-underline-this-for-thick-people moments that compromised
Up In The Air. I would applaud Rowan Joffe's supermodel-skinny script if the lines that are in it were not so clunky. It's redundant to have someone saying 'Remember last time we spoke?' in reference to a scene which was the last time
anyone in the movie said anything.
The movie only gets going in the last few minutes -- or Act as it's signalled -- when Jack dies and George finally comes alive. (If you think that's a spoiler then also be warned that Christmas falls in December.) My favourite sequence, and the most memorable, is the tension-filled exchange of wares in a modern roadside café when Jack meets the person he knows is stalking him. He knows, she knows, we know, but then we don't. Everything is wonderfully quiet, and for a short time The American becomes the terse, godless stand-off it aimed to be - until Joffe's dialogue interrupts, crashing in with a nod and a wink nobody needed. Such a quiet movie: if only it would shut up.