Who's In It: George Clooney, Paolo Bonacelli, Violante Placido
The Basics: About 90 seconds into this movie, Assassin George (he's the title American) shoots the Euro-lady who was, not moments earlier, licking booze off his fingers. This is because they get ambushed by assassins, which means The American then has to eliminate the bad guys and the innocent bystander so his cover isn't blown. It's a bummer, of course, but when that's your job you pretty much have to erase everyone you come across to make sure it all stays locked down. And over time, as you might imagine when killing is your business, it can take its toll on your soul. It does with George.
What's The Deal: As a character portrait of one solitary assassin and as a subtexty political film about American intervention in other countries, there's nothing new being explained here. Badness makes even more badness; you can feel guilty about it all day but in the end you're still bad. There's your moral. But director Anton Corbijn (he made the Joy Division movie Control) keeps you on board for that agenda because he sells it all cold, measured, cautious, precise, methodical and certain of its own stony-end demise from start to finish. Expect exactly the opposite of the action-plus-guns movie you're hoping it will be and you'll be happy. Okay, maybe happy is the wrong word.
What George Clooney Does: Stares glumly, stares glumly, stares glumly, shoots this guy, shoots the lady he just had sex with, drives and stares glumly, meets contacts, makes a gun, talks on the phone to the boss he no longer trusts, stares glumly, makes another gun, talks some, meets a lady assassin who's even more cold-blooded than he is, stares glumly, gets kind of turned on when he shoots his gun in the lady assassin's direction and she doesn't even flinch, talks to a priest, stares glumly at the priest. Look, I know I'm making it sound weird. Maybe even bad. That's not my intention. But this is what you get. The Michael Clayton end of the spectrum, not the charming man with the smiling crinkle-eyes and the salt-and-pepper suave-itude that you know and love. This is the intense, ascetic brooder who's in every scene but speaks about two dozen lines in a hundred minute movie and walks lockstep toward a bitter fate. It's excellent. Like the priest here says: "You cannot doubt the existence of Hell; you live in it."
Thanks, Director of Photography Named Martin Ruhe: I haven't been on a European vacation in several years now but thanks to this guy and Corbijn I feel like I just saw the most beautiful parts of Italy. If you could, you'd hire these two men to film your whole life so that it looked expensive and perfectly lit. They focus on assassin stuff other movies ignore, too, like the extended ker-CHUNK-ing scenes of custom gun assembly that feel ten times as sensual as the moments when our not-hero is banging his favorite Italian prostitute.