The American (15.)
Directed by Anton Corbijn.
Starring George Clooney, Paola Boncelo, Thelka Reuten and Voilenta Placido. Briefly in Italian with subtitled. 105 mins
The American opens with Clooney and a beautiful woman relaxing in an isolated wooden hut in a snow covered terrain. Soon this idyll is disturbed when someone comes to kill him. So far, so opening scene of The Spy Who Loved Me, but this is going for a quite different, much more thoughtful, cerebral, moody, ponderous, boring form of 70s espionage tale.
This isn't a thriller anyway, it’s a lying low film: the story of a man trying to sit tight and be inconspicuous. After the shootout in the opening five minutes Clooney head off to a village in Tuscany to wait for his next assignment.
The classic lying low film is Witness, Harrison Ford hiding out with the Amish. This though is a slow, meditative piece, more Christ Stopped At Eboli. For audience primed – not unreasonably given the way it's been promoted – for an action thriller, it must feel like the Bored Ultimatum.
The thing about taking your time is that people are going to be much more concerned about plausibility and The American doesn't really add up. If an American hitman wanted to lie low why would he go to a village in Tuscany? Surely he would hole up in an anonymous big city hotel room. And why stay in Italy? Italians are typically a chatty lot. Why not head up to Switzerland where they know better than to poke their noses into other people's business? They should call it The Sore Thumb.
Then there's Clooney. He's playing the ultimate male fantasy figure – the existential, cold blooded killer, the man who is dedicated to his task to the exclusion to all else, the professional. Clooney can play a wide variety of roles but he can't convincingly give you the husk of a man. You never believe in his blank stare.
Though it may think it is doing something bold and original with the form, it is as predictable as any formulaic Saturday night shoot 'em up. The mood may be Le Carre, but the situations and motivation are Higgins and Ludlum: beautiful female assassins, meetings in railway cafes, the lover who throws aside her clothes at every opportunity. Let's be charitable and say it is going for the genre subversion of Jarmusch's Limits Of Control.
It's one thing to make a predictable thriller, quite another to make a ponderous art movie. To do both simultaneously is an unusual, but pointless, achievement. Recommended for anyone who likes watching Clooney drink an espresso in an empty bar or cars moving across scenery from a distance.
The American (15.)
Directed by Anton Corbijn.
Starring George Clooney, Paola Boncelo, Thelka Reuten and Voilenta Placido. Briefly in Italian with subtitled. 105 mins
The American opens with Clooney and a beautiful woman relaxing in an isolated wooden hut in a snow covered terrain. Soon this idyll is disturbed when someone comes to kill him. So far, so opening scene of The Spy Who Loved Me, but this is going for a quite different, much more thoughtful, cerebral, moody, ponderous, boring form of 70s espionage tale.
This isn't a thriller anyway, it’s a lying low film: the story of a man trying to sit tight and be inconspicuous. After the shootout in the opening five minutes Clooney head off to a village in Tuscany to wait for his next assignment.
The classic lying low film is Witness, Harrison Ford hiding out with the Amish. This though is a slow, meditative piece, more Christ Stopped At Eboli. For audience primed – not unreasonably given the way it's been promoted – for an action thriller, it must feel like the Bored Ultimatum.
The thing about taking your time is that people are going to be much more concerned about plausibility and The American doesn't really add up. If an American hitman wanted to lie low why would he go to a village in Tuscany? Surely he would hole up in an anonymous big city hotel room. And why stay in Italy? Italians are typically a chatty lot. Why not head up to Switzerland where they know better than to poke their noses into other people's business? They should call it The Sore Thumb.
Then there's Clooney. He's playing the ultimate male fantasy figure – the existential, cold blooded killer, the man who is dedicated to his task to the exclusion to all else, the professional. Clooney can play a wide variety of roles but he can't convincingly give you the husk of a man. You never believe in his blank stare.
Though it may think it is doing something bold and original with the form, it is as predictable as any formulaic Saturday night shoot 'em up. The mood may be Le Carre, but the situations and motivation are Higgins and Ludlum: beautiful female assassins, meetings in railway cafes, the lover who throws aside her clothes at every opportunity. Let's be charitable and say it is going for the genre subversion of Jarmusch's Limits Of Control.
It's one thing to make a predictable thriller, quite another to make a ponderous art movie. To do both simultaneously is an unusual, but pointless, achievement. Recommended for anyone who likes watching Clooney drink an espresso in an empty bar or cars moving across scenery from a distance.