The American
Anton Corbijn's absorbing new thriller, The American, is based on a novel entitled A Very Private Gentleman, which quite aptly sums up its main character, Jack (George Clooney). A veteran assassin-for-hire, Jack's life bears none of the trappings that we've come to associate with men who kill people for a living. There are no exotic cars or high-tech gadgets, no boisterous comrades-in-arms, not even a precocious 12-year-old to help pass the time. Exiled to a small town in Italy while he waits for the heat to subside after a job in Sweden gone awry, he spends the bulk of his time alone, confined to his plain apartment, pausing between sets of pushups to peer anxiously out his window, where scores of invisible enemies no doubt lurk, waiting to strike.
When he does venture out, it's either to pay a visit to Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), a friendly and inquisitive local priest, or to enlist the services of Clara, (Violante Placido) an enchanting young prostitute. Jack makes for a reluctant social companion, talking little and smiling even less, and yet his two acquaintances seem inexorably drawn to him. Jack tries to keep them at a distance — he's learned from experience that relationships can be hazardous to men in his line of work — but after years of allowing professional considerations to trump emotional ones, his resistance is no longer as stout as it once was. Having gotten a taste of love, he decides he rather likes it — so much, in fact, that he tells his boss (Johan Leysen) that he wants out of the death-delivery business for good as soon as he completes his latest assignment: the construction of a highly specialized firearm for a beautiful and mysterious would-be assassin (Thekla Reuten). But exiting such a profession is never a straightforward task, especially when there are angry Swedes vying for one's scalp.
Director Corbijn shuns much of the conventions of modern thrillers in The American, employing a style as spartan as his protagonist's. Though the film contains several references — both overt and implied — to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, it might be said to have more in common with 1992's Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood's acclaimed deconstruction of the well-worn genre. Corbijn prefers long, static shots to the quick-cut, shaky-cam chaos of the Bourne films and their analogues, and his muted aesthetic makes even Italy's scenic countryside seem a bit drab. There are no high-energy pop songs to be found on the soundtrack, only Herbert Gronemeyer's haunting, piano-heavy score, which Corbijn employs sparingly. Instead, pervasive in The American is a kind of unnerving quiet that effectively underscores the film's most potent scenes. How frightful a single gunshot can be when bracketed by near-complete silence.
Clooney is characteristically superb as the paranoid, tormented Jack, a role that calls for a tremendous degree of subtlety, if not range. Corbijn tasks him, along with co-stars Bonacelli and Placido, to carry a determinedly minimalist film that boasts no fancy tricks up its sleeve, and they deliver admirably. Audiences who go to see The American expecting a conventional Hollywood spy thriller will no doubt be disappointed to find out they've stumbled into an art-house film — and an unrelentingly grim one at that — but those seeking relief from the inanity and bombast of the summer movie season will be pleasantly surprised.
Hollywood.com rated this film 3 1/2 stars.