Blogorium Review: The American

I've had a hell of a time trying to sell anyone on Anton Corbijn's The American: despite being highly praised by critics, most people I know seem to have one set opinion of the film, an opinion that prevents any interest in entertaining the fact that what The American is being sold as is not at all what The American actually is. Hopefully this review will change your positions; I'd hate to think you'd miss out on such a fine film because of its marketing.

The advertising for The American does it a great disservice: despite what it may appear to be in trailers, the film is not a Jason Bourne-esque techno-thriller replacing Matt Damon with George Clooney. The American is a quiet, contemplative film punctuated with (literally) muffled outbursts of violence, and while it deals in the world of assassinations, this is far from you run-of-the-mill suspense film. It is, however, a film reminiscent of In Bruges, The Hit, and a far better version of Jarmusch's The Limits of Control. I echoes many elements of these films, while dropping or altering the tone of the narrative to fit a quieter mood, something along the lines of an All the President's Men.

Corbijn, along with writer Rowan Joffe, maintain a simple structure. Information is delivered in The American only as needed: Jack (Clooney) is in Sweden with a woman (Irina Björklund) identified in the credits as Ingrid. While out for a walk, he's attacked by two assassins, kills them and Ingrid, then leaves. His handler / boss, Pavel (Johan Leysen) sends the American into hiding in Castelvecchio, a small town in the Abruzzo mountains of Italy, but Jack decides instead to go to Castel del Monte and sets up as Edward.

Jack / Edward is paranoid, and none of the people surrounding him in Castel del Monte give him any reason not to be: not Clara (Violante Placido), a prostitute he becomes attached to, not Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), who has his own secrets and may have been following Jack. Not even Pavel, who assigns Jack another job, this time working for Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), a woman planning her own hit. Not to mention the Swedish hitman who finds Jack almost immediately after he arrives.

The biggest misleading element of the marketing for The American is in what Jack does in the film: contrary to the suggestion, Jack designs and builds weapons for assassins. He isn't actually a contract killer, although Universal's advertising division does a hell of a job finding every single shot where Clooney is holding a gun to suggest the film is a "hired killer on the run" movie. Quite the contrary: Anton Corbijn (Control) constructs the film in slow beats, held in place by unbroken takes that don't rely on MTV-style editing. Dialogue is sparse, and often the audience is only given half of the information - we're relied on to fill in the blanks ourselves.

Clooney, as the only American in the film, delivers a fine, subdued performance, one that doesn't trade on his wit or charm as many would expect. The American goes even beyond Michael Clayton in allowing Clooney to be serious without histrionics: we know nothing more about Jack than what is observable through his behavior, his patterns, his interactions. Clooney's insular performance (down to the way he physically carries himself, often buried within the pockets of his coat) as atypical of what many people are expecting of him - and what almost everyone hesitant to see The American expressed to me - and his barely controlled paranoia never overwhelms the character.

The film itself is only loosely a comment on Americans overseas: aside from a few brief references in songs or dialogue to his status as an outsider, no greater critique of American culture is present in the film, any more so than that of espionage among Europeans. Along with small juxtapositions of Clooney's lone American in Italy, Corbijn throws in a clever visual joke: while Jack is waiting in a diner, Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West is playing, the only one of the Italian director's "Spaghetti Westerns" to be filmed in America. One senses a slight nod to Papillon as well, due to a recurring motif in the film: Jack / Edward's nickname "Mr. Butterfly," tied both to the tattoo on his neck, a brief shot of a nature guide he reads while sleeping, and a short but pertinent conversation near the river he returns to throughout the film.

If nothing else, I hope this review helps clarify The American for pessimistic viewers: you're being sold a bill of goods that doesn't match the product, and in almost every way undersells what you would actually see, were you to watch the film. Like yesterday's review of The Town, I can't say that the story will blow your mind - although there are no major "twists" in the film, another element it shares with In Bruges, The Hit, and The Limits of Control - but the familiar narrative is important more in the telling than what's being told. Do yourself a favor and look past the misgivings; I suspect you won't regret it.