The American

[modage]

From my blog:

Too slight for awards but a jarring change of pace from the summer blockbusters The American is the perfect movie to usher in Fall movie season. Iconic photographer Anton Corbijn's sophomore effort is a European anti-thriller starring George Clooney as an aging assassin. Corbijn's first film, the Joy Division biopic Control, was half a great film. Beautifully shot, I remember a long sequence where the camera follows a teenaged Ian Curtis down the street presumably on his way to band practice, as he turns the corner his jacket reads "HATE", I laughed out loud. The next cut reveals him at work at a grocery store. As the band ascended to fame the film seemed to resemble more standard rock bios but I always remember being struck by the beginning.

I was reminded of this during The American, which features many shots of Clooney walking down narrow Italian streets. As if the only way to give the audience the subjective experience of the character is to literally place the camera behind him, since we're given almost no details about his past. His character is a loner, and mostly silent through the film until he falls in love with a prostitute. He plans to get away after one last job, and if you can't see where the movie is going from there you've probably never seen a movie before. For what seems to be a coldly emotional and deliberately paced film, I was never bored. The film is beautifully shot, and Clooney, playing against type (and suppressing his smile), made it interesting to watch.

[picolas]

spoilerish?

it's gerry meets bourne..y. it works really well as a demystification of the assassin/spy movie, and i loved the visuals and overall tone.. the sheer monotony of building a gun, and living a life of looking over your shoulder. it is definitely the kind of movie that asks you to step forward and draw your own meaning from its depths, as well as fill in the extended silences with your own wandering thoughts. it's also very good at feeding you information subtly without you even knowing it in some cases. for the most part i think it's a very good movie, but it does have several gaping flaws:

1. the relationship with the prostitute is woefully underdeveloped. we know her for about 2 minutes before she becomes, like, the answer to everything in clooney's life. it's pretty unbelievable, but worse than that, it's not compelling.

!spoils!

2. the ending is very disappointing and blah. nothing new, and doesn't take advantage of the rest of the movie.
3. that cg moth is ridiculous. why did it have to flap its wings like that? ruined the moment.

[modage]

The prostitute is really hot and Gerry was the worst movie ever.

[Stefen]

Every positive review I read for this movie is like someone trying to come up with excuses why it's it's not boring. Taut gets thrown around, which is never a good thing. Taut and emotional means boring and lifeless.

[picolas]

it's boring and lifeless for a reason though. like as a counter to other spy movies. and i genuinely found that interesting. gerry's boring and lifeless too because it's a realistic portrayal of being stalked by death in the wilderness.. unintentional boringness, eg. green zone, is what sucks.

[Stefen]

I liked this a lot and didn't find it boring at all. I think that's cause I prepared myself for it's boringness and when it wasn't, I found it action fucking packed. It's slow, but it has to be. The gorgeous cinematography helps you move along.

Holy crap, the prostitute was hot. I mean, she was almost too pretty. You couldn't even look at her. Something that was very believable about the film is that a gorgeous Italian prostitute falls in love with George Clooney. If there is a girl who doesn't know what love is, it would probably be an Italian prostitute and if there was a man to show her it, it would probably be Clooney. Very believable plotline.

I liked the ending. I wasn't expecting it and it worked for me.

See it if only for the hot prostitute.

[Fernando]

spoilerish?
it's gerry meets bourne..

close to a quote I read:

"If Terrence Malick were to put his gloss on Jason Bourne, the result might be something like The American."

I found that last week while seaching for malick news, only that this was said at chritianitytoday.com 


anyway, with your reviews my expectations went through the roof.

[edison]

Local paper called this "Bourne meets Antonioni." I like that and that's kinda what I felt watching it.

[JG]

this movie is awful. i'm curious as to what meaning you drew from its depths, picolas, because i found it to be shallow and vapid. a melville movie it is not. the prostitute is the best part.

[modage]

[squints]

i would've assumed "The Fat American"

[Pubrick]

or "The American't"

[Stefen]

lol chris tucker is the too hot to look at prostitute.

[Pas]

You know how Descartes said "I think therefore I am"... well really he should've said I think I'm great therefore I am.

It's not a bad film per se, but god damn the pretention. Also, too many plot holes, again. That lady assassin was definitely the worst assassin ever (she goes to the toilet to load her gun, really?) and the car chase between the little motorbike vs the car is very lol. They go at like 25-30mph AT BEST. Melville it pretends to be, Melville it is not!

[SiliasRuby]

Slow, methodical, and yet piercingly engaging this existential drama about a hit man shivered my soul. Shades of Malick and Antonioni come to the surface throughout this flick and maybe the director did that on purpose.

I can't complain all that much about this film which seems to embody everything including an empty soul. I was sad I ultimately didn't connect with any of the characters... I wasn't expected to do so but I was hoping against hope that I could. Often like I hope to connect with people on here but more often than not all I get is viciousness obnoxiousness and complete indifference. Anyway, George's character is very good at what he does but he doesn't seem to enjoy it. Any of it. I guess he's embodying the stereotypical hit man persona to anyone he interacts with because a: thats what people expect him to be and B: like one character says if you make friends in this business it can often badly. The only people he doesn't do this with are the prostitutes where we see fleeting glances of compassion.

Really beautiful cinematography but I wasn't expecting horrendous after watching that trailer. It makes me want to go to these exotic places. I loved how they used the color red during the sex scenes. It seemed appropriate-like anguish thrown upon us from the screen unto the audience.

It reminded me of Antonioni's film 'The Passenger' for some reason and not just because both of them are slow and have a American Actor living/working abroad. At first it was tough to realize Clooney as this character just like it was hard to picture Tom Hanks in 'Road To Perdition' but he pulled it off. I am going to encourage more people to see this picture who don't live on this message board. Hopefully they will embrace this side of colony and it will get them to go see more meditative films.