Cinema Verdict Review: The American

The American

OPENING: 09/02/2020

STUDIO: Focus Features

RUN TIME: 105 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
George Clooney is The American

Opening Statement
One can only wonder how on earth a film like The American secured a wide theatrical release. I saw it at a 10-screen multiplex which traditionally avoids anything remotely “artsy” like the plague, but it’s showing there and at almost every other theatre around. The TV ads are promoting it as an action-packed international thriller; perhaps George Clooney’s Jason Bourne movie. However, the actual film is quiet, slow and meditative, requiring close attention and a good deal of patience. No matter. Whether it’s showing on 2 screens or 2,000, the important thing is that The American is an excellent film well worth seeing.

Facts of the Case
The film’s central character is Jack (George Clooney, Michael Clayton), though sometimes he goes by Edward. He is a professional assassin. His latest assignment took something of a sour turn, and now he’s laying low in the Italian countryside. While he’s there, his employer (Johan Leysen, Brotherhood of the Wolf) provides him with a relatively simple assignment. He is to build a rifle according to specifications provided by a contact (Thekla Reuten, In Bruges), deliver the rifle within a certain amount of time and then collect his pay. While working on this assignment, Jack spends his evenings with a prostitute named Clara (Violante Placido, Sleepless). Jack knows that he can’t afford the luxury of having friends or lovers in his business, but being with Clara makes him contemplate whether he should be in the business at all.

The Evidence
The basic plot structure of The American is very simple, unfolding at its own languid pace one small piece at a time. The film is noteworthy not for the story that it tells but for the way in which it tells it, as writer Rowan Joffe and director Anton Corbijn take reinvigorate old clichés by stripping them to their core and carefully examining them. Yes, we have seen The Hit Man Starting to Lose His Edge before, along with the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, but rarely have such characters felt so potently well-defined.

I mentioned that the film isn’t much like the Bourne movies. So what is it like? The first thing that came to mind was Jim Jarmusch’s similarly precise hit man movie, The Limits of Control. Corbijn echoes that film in his attention to detail, the rhythms of his editing, the carefully composed shots, the cautious pace, the lingering images of the European countryside, the spare dialogue and the intensely controlled performances. There are two significant differences. One is that both films are billed as thrillers, but only Corbijn’s is genuinely thrilling. The other is that Jarmusch’s film ultimately felt like a clinical experiment, while Corbijn’s film has truthful, intense emotions running beneath the muted surface. That puts it about on par with one of Jarmusch’s stronger movies, the beautifully restrained Broken Flowers.

One could also compare the movie to other boldly uncompromising films on Clooney’s resume like Solaris and The Good German, as it will undoubtedly divide critics and audiences as sharply as those ambitious (though admittedly flawed) projects did. Or perhaps a more apt comparison is Up in the Air, Jason Reitman’s superb drama about a businessman who discovered a yearning for human connection. Jack is as taciturn and enigmatic as Up in the Air’s Ryan Bingham was chatty and open, but the slow-burning desire to find something more profound than a profession grips both men. The most direct influence is specifically mentioned in the film: Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, another film which realized that tremendous suspense and drama could be found in prolonged close-ups of the human face.

So yes, it’s obvious that the film owes a debt to many other fine movies, but then most great films do. Corbijn takes things we have seen before and delivers them in a manner that I found intensely powerful; there are few movies you will see this year which are more blatantly cinematic. I leave most films thinking about little things I might have changed or done differently; even very good movies have moments like that. The American is a film made with such clarity, confidence and purpose that I can’t think of a single thing I would alter in any significant way. There are so many moments in this film that I could not help but fall in love with immediately; they communicate so much in a manner both very subtle and unavoidably direct.

This is not an actor’s movie in the traditional sense, but the tone of the film is so fragile that it requires a cautious balancing act on the part of everyone involved. Clooney is the subject of much scrutiny, as the film spends a good deal of time simply examining his face (though the film is also fond of examining him from a distance in long, sweeping shots which accentuate his loneliness and isolation). It’s the sort of performance where the smallest gesture can reveal plenty, and it becomes particularly compelling when he is engaged in conversation (verbal or otherwise) with other human beings. There are a couple of superb scenes involving Jack and an aging priest (Paolo Bonacelli, M:i III), and the negotiations between Jack and his contact are fascinating in the way they examine the level of trust on both sides. However, my single favorite moment is one I can’t even describe for you; a quick gesture which is emotionally shattering in context.

Closing Statement
Obviously, this isn’t a movie for everyone. I can easily see how one might come away declaring the movie to be a typical story delivered at a slower-than-usual pace. But if you’re willing to accept the film on its own terms, to look beneath the surface and to really consider the words and (especially) the actions of the characters, you’ll find an immensely rewarding experience. The American is one of my favorite motion pictures of the year.

The Verdict
10/10

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