Posted in: Movies, Review | Tagged: american, anton corbijn, george clooney

REVIEW: Anton Corbijn's The American With George Clooney

Published Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:31:44 -0600

Last updated Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:33:08 -0600

Michael Moran writes for Bleeding Cool:

George Clooney is the modern age's closest equivalent to Cary Grant. Handsome, charming and as smooth as a buttered Nigel Havers he's the housewives' heartthrob that men think it's OK to like.

But, like dear old Archie Leach, he's not often to be found in a straight action flick. You would probably have to go all the way back to 1997's The Peacemaker to see George waving a pistol around in the Daniel Craig manner.

Then again, this slow-burning thriller about an assassin on one last job before he retires is nothing like a standard run & gun action flick.

It opens, sure enough, as if we're in for a re-run of The Spy Who Loved Me with Our Hero sucking down some Glühwein with an attractive young miss in a log cabin somewhere in Scandinavia. The thing about James Bond, or even his spunkier young rival Jason Bourne, is that the viewer knows more or less what's going to happen. I don't mean that in a negative way, going to a movie should be a recreation not an exam. Still, if you know one of those people who groans 'this is so predictable' every five minutes when you're trying to watch a DVD, take them along to see this.

Director Anton Corbijn used to be the guy you went to if you were a 1980s pop star and you wanted a moody publicity photograph of your band. He has progressed through music videos to features but you can still see the photographer's eye in the films he makes. The film is filled with long, slow, beautiful shots utilising super-deep focus. Corbijn is in no hurry to tell his story.

The tale in outline, involves one of those myriad ex special ops types who left US government employ to in some sort of private enterprise wetwork. Action movies, and for that matter offbeat John Cusack comedy thrillers, are full of them. This one, whose name is either Jack or Edward or something else that he'd prefer not to divulge, is being tracked by an unknown team of assassins so he holes up in a sleepy little village in rural Italy.

Clooney's very convincing as the alienated, friendless killer who is clearly desperate for a little human warmth but can't afford to open up to anyone. He's also, unsurprisingly, very convincing as someone who holes up in rural Italy.

As part of his quest for intimacy he visits the village brothel. It's not some sordid trailer park business one might expect though. It's a pretty well-upholstered joint, out of the red-lit dreams of Tinto Brass. There he meets Clara, played by the rather lovely Violante Placido. She's a little young for George, I suppose, but at least it's not the ridiculous kind of age gap that Roger Moore popularised during his Bond tenure.

This is probably a good time to mention that this is not the kind of film you want to take your Mum to. Ms. Placido has adopted a distinctly continental approach to her wardrobe in this film.

George's other main foil in the film is the somewhat mysterious Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). She's a fellow assassin preparing for a job. George has been contracted the make her the kind of gun that you'd have to play Call Of Duty all year to unlock.

George moderates his usual twinkly charm a little, and although he still looks for all the world as if he's in a Tyrone Power lookalike contest he successfully evokes the haunted look of someone who expects a knife between his shoulder blades at any moment. Thing is, George has good reason to be paranoid. He's being followed, he doesn't know who he can trust, and the only person he can talk to at all is the local priest. Those conversations are, perforce, a little circumscribed.

Corbijn imbues every moment with a brooding sense of menace. There's some stuff with two lost lambs that you just know are going to end up in a stew and no end of symbolic what-not about endangered butterflies.

The film is more than just an art-house Bond. It's got some of that bleak alienated amorality that Charles Bronson used to turn in before Michael Winner got hold of him, mixed up with the doomed decency of Get Carter.

I can't recommend this film highly enough. It's a proper thriller for grown-ups that doesn't just put in an action beat every 10 minutes because some Hollywood accountant told it to. There will always be a place for The Expendables, but there really aren't enough films like The American being made these days, and you'll feel a fool if you miss it.