Film Review: The American

George Clooney may command the adoration of millions of females around the globe, but he does not, err...command mine? Anywho, while I've never had any particular affinity for the man, a couple of films have made me reconsider my preconceptions of the heartthrob, notably Burn After Reading and more recently, Up In The Air. So, it was with an open mind which I stepped into the theatre for his latest outing, The American...

'Jack', or 'Edward' (we are never revealed his true identity) is a super talented, gun manufacturing assassin who botches a job in Sweden. Attempting to escape the repercussions of his failure, Jack/Edward flees to a small Italian town to recuperate and lie low. Once there, he takes on what he promises to be his last job as he works his way through a mid-life crisis and falls in love with the village bike.

Photographically, The American is stunning. Opening in a Swedish winter wonderland and continuing with spectacular shots of mountainous Italian countryside, you might be forgiven for thinking you were watching an extended screening for a car advert. But the scenery is more than that. It is symbolic of Jack/Edward's midlife crisis, his life, his existence and indeed his hopes and wishes. For a film which features very little in the way of dialogue, it is pictures which are left to speak louder than words. Much of the film for example consists of following Jack/Edward go about his business quietly, portraying the otherwise ruthless assassin as a lonely, even gentil lost soul.

Yet, this becomes so glaringly obvious within the first twenty minutes that you wish the film would just move forward. Instead, it seems that director Anton Corbijn feels the need to hammer the point of the isolated existence of an assassin facing an existential crisis, so much so that the audience is treated to a full 105mins of George Clooney wandering aimlessly around Italian countryside. It becomes somewhat tedious watching what essentially amounts to a silent film punctuated with the occasional gunshot. Even though the scenes of Italian terrain are beautiful, these 'master shots' become so patently over used that their meaning becomes lost.

Indeed, Corbijn's film is self-indulgent and pretentious. Attempts to build tension are underwhelming and  one could see the ending a mile off. If the film had actually gone somewhere and was not so cliched, it might be forgiven for consistently ramming down one's throat that this is a film about a man with a troubled conscience. Instead, what we're left with is yet another film where George Clooney is facing a mid-life crisis, a role in which he seems to exclusively specialise in these days.