The American (2010): B

If you’re going to imitate, you may as well imitate the best, a fact embraced by Anton Corbijn, whose The American is – in terms of tone, character and fatalism – an American rendition of Jean-Pierre Melville’s seminal existential Euro-noirs. Jack (George Clooney) is an assassin defined by a ritualistic code of conduct that, at story’s start, he’s already broken by vacationing in the snowy mountains with a lover. When his cover is blown and pursuing Swedes ambush him, Jack is forced to murder, and then – in a decision whose motivation remains ambiguous, and which will haunt him from that point forward – he shoots his paramour (Irina Björklund) in the back. A handler (Johan Leysen) facilitates Jack’s flight to a small Italian village, where he’s given a job to construct a high-powered rifle for another killer (Thekla Reuten), and despite re-embracing solitude (including shirtless push-ups and sit-ups) and his efficient craftsman profession, he also again opens his heart, this time to an Italian prostitute (Violante Placido) whose purse alarmingly contains a revolver. Whether within confining indoor spaces or set against the imposing rural Italian landscape, Jack is framed by director Corbijn at a constant remove from his environment, thereby heightening the mood of patient, chilly alienation. That atmosphere is a pose directly modeled after Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge, just as Clooney’s silent, suffering performance is a direct ancestor of Alain Delon’s ultra-cool gangster turns. A distinct lack of heart-pounding suspense proves an unavoidable shortcoming for these thriller-ish proceedings. Yet aside from a leaden subplot involving Jack’s relationship with a local priest (Paolo Bonacelli), The American’s replication is reverential and spot-on, from the self-disgust and resignation of Clooney’s glances at his new lover – infused with the fear of potentially having to end their affair as he did his last – to a finale that, unlike most of Hollywood’s so-called noirs, recognizes that, in this genre, a desire to change is the same thing as a desire to die.

Comments

[Mark]

Giving away the shock of the opening scene is absolutely criminal. Anyone reading this will have their viewing experience diminished by reading your review. Why do some reviewers feel the need to do this?

[Nick]

Feel the need to do what? Discuss the movie's particulars? If you want to avoid anything that might possibly be deemed a spoiler, don't read film reviews before seeing the films themselves. The review grade provides a general idea of whether the piece is positive or negative.