LFF: The American – 3*
Don’t be fooled by the action sequences they squeeze out of the film for the trailer to try marketing this as an action-based crime thriller: it’s no Bourne. It is a part-foreign-language drama set in foreign lands – making it perfect London Film Festival fodder – that cleverly manages to straddle both art-house and mainstream categories because it has a touch of action and a Hollywood A Lister in it. To the cynically minded, The American feels like a video travel log, in some respect, as there’s very little plot, just some beautiful settings and George Clooney running around, like he’s doing a car advert, in addition to his Nespresso coffee ads.
And just to emphasise the point further, The American is a beautiful offering with beautiful people, looking beautiful in beautiful and idyllic settings. Therefore, who better to lead the beautiful brigade in such an exquisite-looking film than top smoulderer Clooney who plays a mysterious American hit man called Jack who’s hiding out in Italy, until he’s called to do one last job for an equally mysterious client.
What’s obvious is The American is the creation of a photographer-cum-debut-feature-director, Anton Corbijn, with a great eye for detail, as each frame is crafted to capture the best of its subject matter. It’s like the perfect vehicle for Clooney to brood in and melt a thousand hearts, whilst encouraging a surge in bookings to the romantic destinations it’s filmed in.
In cultivating the settings, where very little actually happens, Corbijn – perhaps intentionally, we don’t know – misses out some important character development from Martin Booth’s novel that would go to explain certain circumstances in the film. One such example is Jack’s obsession with butterflies. In the book he’s an artist who paints butterflies, rather than a landscape photographer, hence his passion for the delicate little creatures and reference to Madame Butterfly operatic music. That said with this detail still included in screenwriter Rowan Joffe’s adaptation, it makes for a powerfully striking and iconic ending that’s the most memorable point in the film.
There’s also a little Pretty Woman thing going on, Italian style, with Jack falling for the (naturally) stunning village prostitute, Clara, played by sexy Italian actress/singer/songwriter Violante Placido who spends a lot of the time missing her clothing, even when she’s not on her back working. Add another deadly beauty in the shapely form of Dutch actress Thekla Reute as his unlikely predator, and you have yet more visually attractive elements in the mix, whilst guaranteeing Corbijn’s European audience. There are some great performances from Paolo Bonacelli as a wise old priest with an unexplained but obviously colourful past, and the enigmatic Johan Leysen as Jack’s sinister minder who is beautifully lit in many of his scenes.
The end result is a watchable, if vacuously sumptuous and stylish portrait that puts Clooney firmly in the frame, but is unlikely to win him any Academy accolades as it lacks any real substance and thrills that you’d expect from a ‘thriller’. That said its beauty is undoubtedly captivating, as is its stars, even with very little for Clooney to actually do. The American acts as a prime example of stellar cinematography for any budding film-maker to study, and will be lapped up by Clooney fans who just can’t get enough of his broodingly handsome good looks in big-screen definition. It is the ultimate Clooney fest.
3/5 stars
By L G-K
