(Editors Note: At the request of Claypool Jones, we have renamed his column The Cave)
The American (2010)
Rated R
Welcome back to my underground lair, ladies and gentlemen. This week’s review is focused on a somewhat recent release: The American. The film is based (somewhat loosely, I’d say) on the novel A Very Private Gentleman (1990) by Martin Booth. Directed by Anton Corbijn (Control and several pretty music videos), the cinematography of The American is visually pleasing, and no ladies, not just because it stars George Clooney (Ocean’s Eleven, The Men Who Stare at Goats) as the cliché “assassin on his final mission”. For the fellas, Clooney’s love interest in the film, a prostitute played by Violente Placido (Sleepless, Fade to Black) is also easy on the eyes. The movie also features Thekla Reuten (Ceasefire, The Silent Army) as a shadowy assassin, Paulo Bonacelli (Mission: Impossible III and a whole bunch of foreign films) as a priest and Clooney’s convoluted moral compass, and Johan Leysen (Brotherhood of the Wolf, True Blue) as the mysterious contact for the aging assassin.
Jack (Clooney) is a professional killer and gunsmith. At the beginning of our tale, Jack is hiding out in a snowy cabin hideaway after a job. As is part of the unofficial assassin’s code, he naturally has a beautiful woman at his side, and all seems blissful. As the pair are walking on a frozen lake near the cabin, they are set upon by a sniper, whom our hero deftly dispatches, protecting himself and his love. He then proceeds to murder the women by shooting her unexpectedly in the back. Jack then returns to the cabin and whacks another random bad guy. I’d elaborate more, but that’s really all there was to it…
Jack is then ordered by his handler Pavel (Leysen) to report to central Italy for one last job. He is to construct a rifle for a sexy assassin named Mathilde (Reuten). Since the attempt on his life, Jack is extremely paranoid, and goes into hiding in another town and throws his phone away. While in this random town, he begins patronizing a prostitute named Clara (Placido), and also does some soul-searching with a local priest named Father Bennedetto (Bonacelli). Jack continues his work on the rifle, and one day runs into Clara at a coffee shop. The two begin seeing each other more seriously and begin to develop a relationship. Jack believes he is being followed by the same people who tried to kill him, and he learns from Clara that several prostitutes have recently been murdered. Both plot lines offer intriguing storylines, but neither is really explored in the film.
Jack’s paranoia leads him to believe that Clara may actually be trying to kill him, and he takes her to a secluded picnic spot to kill her, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He also suspects that Mathilde may be planning to kill him, or that Pavel may be trying to kill him, or that everyone may be trying to kill him. I won’t give the ending away, but somebody is in fact trying to kill him. I really wish I could elaborate more on the plot, but there isn’t much of one in this film. If I tell you any more, the movie will have absolutely no value to you, although I may rescue you from spending 105 minutes trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
My main issue with this film is that, from all external promotion and advertising, it is billed as a suspense/thriller. It is, on the other hand, an artsy piece of crap about the internal struggle of an aging assassin, and is therefore incredibly boring. There are many opportunities for interesting progressions within the script, but nothing will drag Corbijn away from his tawdry character study, not even coherent storylines or interesting dialogue. In fact, the set up for the prostitute murders or the assassination attempt by Mathilde are set up so well that when the credits roll, the viewer is left wondering why the hell they even brought those storylines up. They have absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the movie! In fact, I believe their sole purpose was to eat up screen time so people didn’t walk out of the theatre after the first twenty minutes of the film. While watching, you’re waiting for something, anything to develop, then they sneak the credits in on you before you know it and it’s all over. Furthermore, the fact that it is titled The American is odd because it has absolutely nothing to do with the character. In fact, in the book, Jack is of unknown national origin. Just another stunt to lure unwary moviegoers into the seats expecting another Bourne Identity or Mission: Impossible.
The acting in the movie isn’t bad, there’s just not much there to tell. The cinematography of the film is good in that it is pretty to look at, but you can tell that Corbijn hails from a long line of music videos. You see, unlike in a movie, a music video doesn’t have to tell a story. It can just look good and have absolutely nothing to do with the song, as long as the audience is wowed by imagery. This film is an incoherent 105 minute music video with no music. The pace is so slow that, if this were a race between the tortoise and the hare, The American would be the tortoise, and the hare would have to stop for a snack, a nap, a drug intervention, and then shoot himself in the face in a fit of depression waiting for a storyline to develop in order for the tortoise to have any hope of winning.
The bottom line is this: If I want to look at pretty backgrounds, I’ll get a National Geographic screen saver. If I want an introspective look into the character’s thoughts and feelings, I’ll read the book. And if you advertise a movie as a suspense/thriller, the very least you could do is offer some suspense or thrills. This movie has very little to offer in entertainment, which, I thought at least, was the point of movies. I live inside this cave, miles into the bowels of the earth, for a reason. The only light I have is from my movie screen, the only food I have is Orville Reddenbacher’s Movie Theatre Butter microwave popcorn and a half a can of Orange Crush. This is to protect myself from bad movies. The only assassination procedure this film displayed was its ninja-like ability to infiltrate my defenses like the Trojan Horse, promising excitement and entertainment, yet delivering intellectual destruction and mind-numbing tediousness. When it’s over, you’ll as yourself the same question I asked myself: “Where the hell did that come from”?