Some movies present the audience with a central character so cryptic, the experience is made involving solely by working to decipher the person. Such is the case with The American, in which George Clooney plays a man whose profession requires he be so secretive, he can’t even be himself when he’s alone. Or has he literally become his profession—a black-market weapons maker? That’s the viewer’s decision to a make. This is a movie in which plot (of which there is little) is secondary; the real arc and its accompanying tension are created by the viewer figuring out what this man is thinking. Many will be surprised at how much of a relationship they form with him in the process, how much they begin to care for a man who is as cold as they come on the surface. His real name is Jack, or is it? That doesn’t much matter because, for most of the movie, he goes by Edward, and you’ll think of him as Clooney. When the audience meets him in a wintery opening scene, he has been staying with a woman in a cabin in the Swedish countryside. That’s the extent of our knowledge, however, when hitmen attempt to kill him. Jack treats the event with such definiteness that it’s clearly a regular occurence for him, and he is able to make off after shooting them—and his fling—dead. From there, his boss Pavel (Johan Leysen) assigns him to a new city, in remote Italy. There, we learn his gig is to make custom firearms, tailored specially for specific hits. His client is Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), who provides the specs and nothing else. Jack mostly follows protocol and keeps to himself as he assembles the gun, but he can’t avoid entanglements with the local priest (Paolo Bonacelli), who realizes his cover as a photographer doesn’t add up, and a seductive prostitute (Violante Placido), who he begins to see off the clock. All the while, the Swedes are clearly still after him.
If quiet, artful movies aren’t your thing, than you best look the other way. But for those who are willing to invest in The American, the payoff is rewarding. While the movie may not deliver constant action, it’s a real white-knuckler, especially due to the overwhelming cloud of doom that enshrouds Jack as the plot progresses.
But before one becomes enveloped in the central character, one will notice the film’s other superior trait: its visual power. Directed by former still photographer Anton Corbijin, who also made the 2007 black-and-white beauty Control, and shot by his DP Martin Ruhe, The American would likely be just as transfixing without sound. The stark, beautifully composed shots are not only a treat for the eyes, they capture the mysterious protagonist’s underlying primal emotions. While Clooney and the screenplay flesh out the details, the widescreen cinematography may be the viewer’s greatest insight into what Jack is feeling on the most basic level, from assuredness to claustrophobia.
Speaking of Clooney: this is his best performance in some time. He’s an actor who has always been gifted at playing solitary, bottled-up characters—for a more mainstream example, just look at Ryan Bingham in last year’s Up in the Air—and Jack represents a blank canvas that gives him a lot of creative room to roam. This is an appropriately un-showy performance, mostly free of dialogue, so the mere fact that Clooney keeps the viewer invested in the character is a marker of his success. And, as is the case with any great acting of this nature, Clooney’s work is up for interpretation; just as a real-life person’s behavior could be viewer completely differently by separate onlookers, such is the case with Jack’s.
And don’t even get me started on Clooney’s co-star, Placido, who has a preordained future in American films for the simple fact that… well, you’ll know when you see them.
With such an engrossing, well-crafted character at the helm, it must have been tempting for director Corbijn to run wild with the movie. It could have easily kept up its high interest level for three hours. But instead, Corbijn remains incredibly measured, just as precise and masterful in his assembly of The American as Jack is in making firearms. It’s a raw filmmaking feat – a picture that strips down all the baggage usually associated with crime movies and makes a far more complex piece of work out of immaculately examined, often impenetrable human behavior.
* * *
The American (2010, USA). Produced by Anne Carey, George Clooney, Jill Green, Grant Heslov, Enzo Sisti, Moa Westeson, and Ann Wingate. Directed by Anton Corbijn. Written for the screen by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel by Martin Booth. Starring George Clooney, Violante Placido, Paolo Bonacelli, Thekla Reuten, and Irina Björklund. Distributed by Focus Features. Rated R, with a running time of 105 minutes.
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