Who's In It: George Clooney, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido, Paolo Bonacelli, Johan Leysen, Irina Björklund, Filippo Timi
The Basics: When a cozy Swedish rendezvous goes awry, an assassin (George Clooney) retreats to a remote Italian town to lay low. Here, the antisocial killer forms tenuous relationships with a local priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and a comely prostitute (Violante Placido) while carrying out one last job for his mysterious, menacing handler (Johan Leysen). But as time grows short and hired guns descend on Clooney's mountain hideaway, panic and suspicion mounts. Can the weary assassin leave the life of violence behind and regain his humanity through love and redemption -- or is it simply too late for this sinner to be saved?
What's the Deal: More character study than action movie, this adaptation of Martin Booth's 1990 novel "A Very Private Gentleman" is instead concerned with the inner workings of its amoral antihero, whom we witness do very bad things at film's start that haunt him until the very end. Working through these moralistic quandaries is George Clooney, absent his usual Clooney charm, who conveys his character's career-hardened loneliness by glaring with suspicion at everyone who crosses his path in the beautifully-filmed small towns of Italy's Abruzzo region. Thankfully, Clooney loosens up to deliver some of the best, largely dialogue-free work of his acting career -- even if we must wait through an hour of silent, stony staring to get to it. Regardless, because The American treads familiar ground in the "aging assassin/spy/cowboy makes one last attempt at redemption" subgenre, much of what transpires feels like it's been done to death already, leaving The American a minor, flawed gem in Clooney's filmography.
Less Is More, More is Less: In his second feature film, photographer-turned-director Anton Corbijn tries his best to match Clooney's hostile stillness with distance of his own, but his attempts at visual nuance inadvertently come off as conspicuous filmmaking choices overly fraught with meaning. The cumulative effect can be distracting; you may find yourself wondering why Corbijn keeps filming the back of Clooney's head, what the vast Swedish snowscape implies about his character, or why endangered butterflies keep popping up in the film. (Hint: they're all metaphors.) For a more assured and naturally affecting display of Corbijn's skill, watch his excellent 2007 pic Control, about the late Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.
A Catalogue of All Things Cool in The American: The wordless sequence in which assassin Clooney -- who's also a mechanical genius -- makes a homemade sniper rifle in his rented Italian apartment. The red-tinged love scene between Clooney and his alluring lover, played by Italian pop singer/actress Violante Placido. The elegant lady sniper, played by Thekla Reuten, who may or may not have a soft spot for Clooney and may or may not be assigned to take him out. The scene from Once Upon a Time in the West, playing on TV in a local bar, which inspires a brief conversation about Sergio Leone and foreshadows Clooney's fate.
The Single Most Un-Cool Thing in The American: The tattoo of a butterfly that Clooney has on the back of his neck. (Hence his character's nickname: "Mr. Butterfly.") It's a metaphor, in case you couldn't tell. Guys, I know you have man-crushes on Clooney -- but if George Clooney can't even pull off a butterfly neck tattoo in a movie, you cannot pull off a butterfly neck tattoo in real life. Don't even try it.