The aging gunslinger trying, usually unsuccessfully, to hang up his guns, is a tried and true Western formula used to good effect in "The American," a new thriller opening today at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. Despite the title, George Clooney is about the only American element in this movie, which has a distinctly European feel.
Clooney plays an assassin and custom gunsmith whose name is Jack or Edward (referred to as "Jack" for the rest of the review, for the sake of the sanity of both reader and writer), depending on who he's talking to. In a startling prologue, Jack/Edward is in Sweden for what appears to be a romantic getaway until things go bad, and we find that the character is completely capable of shooting an unarmed woman he's recently made love to in the back. His contact tells him to hide out in a small town in Italy, and that he used to know better than to make friends.
Jack wants out, but accepts one last assignment--this time just making a gun he won't have to shoot for an assassination to be carried out by a woman, Mathilde (Dutch actress Thekla Reuten). While making the weapon, and despite his better judgment, he makes starts at two relationships, a friendship with the village priest, Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) and a business relationship that turns into a courtship with a prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido).
The suspense in "The American" is quiet but pervasive. Jack has learned to be private, even paranoid. (The title of the novel by Martin Booth the film is based on is "A Very Private Gentleman.") But then people are out to get him, and though is not a "Bourne" movie by any stretch of the imagination, themovie doesn't let us forget what the main character does for a living.
Clooney is quiet and mature as a man who's told he's losing his edge, or is he discarding it? Jack has two tattoos, one a military insignia on his arm, a dagger in a triangular shield, and a butterfly on his back. He's repeatedly called "Mr. Butterfly," generally by women. Butterflies are almost always symbols of change, and a cocoon is shown on a tree branch at a climactic moment. Clark Gable and Errol Flynn did some of their best dramatic work late in their careers, and Clooney, like Brad Pitt, seems to be another matinee idol who's performances in middle age have a growing richness. Clooney looks in excellent shape in the film, is generally shown as unglamorous as possible, unshaven in drab clothing.
Directed by Anton Corbijn, a former still photographer and camera operator, the movie has a distinctively un-Hollywood look. The visual compositions are striking, often deliberately asymmetrical, which somehow always makes cinematography look European, as does his tendency to take in textures, particularly of aging stone walls and chipping paint. Although the Swedish prologue is crisp, cold and snowy, most of the movie looks autumnal, and pleasantly devoid of the cliched, sun-drenched green and gold look of the recent spate of romantic movies shot in Italy.
Ultimately, "The American" is the story of a man of violence trying to find peace. Drama is always about one main character who really, really wants something, is willing to do anything to get it, and either gets it or doesn't. The suspense generated in the movie really has more to do with that than the planned assassination. In any event, "The American" is really a psychological Western in European clothing, a somber, mature, well-made character study. It almost jumps through hoops to get to a downbeat ending, which evokes existentialist films of the sixties and seventies, but maybe the retrofit is a response to the current franchise mentality prevalent in Hollywood. In any event, in this case one doesn't expect a sequel.
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