The American Review

With Oscar season beginning to heat up, the American has been pushed forward as a potential candidate to snag nominations for film and mainly gorgeous George Clooney. The American represents a new trend emerging in potential Oscar grabbing films; instead of taking the historical/true story approach, they take the road of redemption and lost souls. Although, an unfair criticism to some extent, The American does tick many of these boxes. However, The American is much more than simple award season fodder down to Clooney, Corbijn and Joffe.

Clooney plays Jack/Edward, an assassin hiding out in a small town in Italy for one last assignment after a job in Sweden goes wrong. Corbijn’s film is completely focused upon Clooney’s central performance with 90% of the film’s shots featuring him. Clooney used his Hollywood power to push through this film for production (as credited) and throughout the film, he seems almost affectionate for the scenes playing out around him. Furthermore, the studio’s release of this film indicates that Focus Features, the studio behind The American, smells awards. In one sense, they are correct. Clooney plays the part well utilising every line of dialogue, of which is there is little, effectively and using his very presence as another tool in his acting arsenal. The lack of back story does cause an atmosphere of mystery and suspicion around Clooney’s character, however, it leaves too much to the imagination. Indeed, Joffe’s script does not keep the audience fully interested throughout its full running time therefore meaning Clooney’s performance can never hit the heights of Up in the Air.

Nevertheless, this film is a two-pronged attack upon your senses with Clooney’s performance leading the charge with Corbijn’s achingly beautiful shots and sequences. The film is an overload of beauty upon the senses with Corbijn’s scouting agent finding the most iconic town in the all of Italy. The long drawn out shouts of beautiful Sweden in the beginning and the small Italian town are beyond beautiful with each shot seemingly descending from the heavens above and into Corbijn’s lens. As with Control, Corbijn uses his wealth of experience as a D.O.P to push as much as beauty onto the screen as possible. However, as with many D.O.P’s, the fear is that there will be no meat on the bones to their beautiful imagery. Corbijn proved sceptics wrong with Control, however, there are little niggles here with his second feature.

Whether this be due to Corbijn, Joffe or just other factors, this film does enjoy looking at its own beauty a tad too much. Don’t get me wrong, I could watch these shots all day as part of my screen saver, however, I was hoping for the plot to move along at slightly a faster pace. Indeed, outside of the film, this is one of the factors that caused bad reviews for The American. In the U.S. the film is advertised as an action film with high tension and multiple shootings and as shown in the film’s poor IMDB reviews, many feel aggrieved by the lack of die-hard action. This film is definitely a slow burner and one that requires patience and respect. That being said, it felt like the film was trying too hard and needed more content inside to make it a more well-rounded experience.

The supporting characters do well and provide good support for the solo show that is Clooney. Indeed the sexual intensity between Clara (Violante Placido) and Jack is hot and passionate and Corbijn truly brings that across and provides a great depth to both characters. This scene does in fact actually provide on of the high points of this beautiful if ever so slow film. The end is horrendously clichéd but all in all, it is a slow, respectful and well acted film if guilty for trying too hard.

3/5