Movie Review: The American

Clooney finds restraining his usual charm is not working. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 3.5/5
Verdict: Thriller shoots first then asks existential questions later. For quite some time.

He might have achieved a respectable body count by the end of the first reel. But for most of this, George Clooney's hitman, a nameless taciturn Europe-based freelancer, spends a good deal of this film at his work bench.

There, in his Italian village bolthole, he's building a custom weapon for what he hopes will be his final client.

Fittingly perhaps, the specifications call for a noise-suppresser which he expertly machines from a local mechanic's haul of spare parts. His engineering is much like the movie.

Firstly, it's at pains to keep the noise down with plenty of time spent gazing from afar at lone cars weaving across lovely Italian landscapes. Or letting the occasional weighty profundity hang in the existentially-charged air during the movie's minimal dialogue.

And like that spare parts silencer, the movie is largely retrofit. It's a familiar story about a stranger in a strange land, a killer trying to regain his humanity and letting his feelings for a local gal get in the way of his professional detachment or his code.

It could have been made any time since the minimalist 1967 French assassin flick Le Samourai.

Actually, it could have been made even earlier as a Western. Just replace the local Italian padre offering to hear the American's confession with a Mexican one, make his love interest a saloon girl and Sergio Leone's your uncle. The movie says as much with a clip of Once Upon A Time in the West playing in a cafe in one scene.

It stops short of a Morricone soundtrack, though. Possibly because the movie has a thing for butterflies - so cue Madame Butterfly. Oh, and it's mandatory for films about Americans in Italy to include a verse or two of Tu Vuo' Fa L'Americano, last heard on The Talented Mr Ripley.

Predictably, former rock photographer turned director Corbijn (this is his second film after his fine Joy Division drama Control) has an eye and ear for stylish elements. But sometimes The American can feel like Corbijn's old stills camera has been loaded on the tripod instead. And with Clooney's usual charm levels dialled back so far, this hitman sort-of-thriller might be daring to be different in the post-Bourne era. But it also feels like it's trying a little too hard to impress with its cool impenetrability.

That said, it does exude a fine sense of tension.

Especially in a cafe scene where Clooney finally delivers the weapon to his client. And his affair with a local prostitute - played by the lovely Violente Placido - should do wonders for the regional Italian sex industry.

Yes, a warning: this slow-mover of a movie contains sex and Violente. Often in the same scene.

LOWDOWN

Cast: George Clooney, Johan Leysen, Violente Placido, Thekla Reuten
Director: Anton Corbijn
Rating: R16 (violence offensive language sex scenes)
Running time: 105mins

-TimeOut