Just saw “The American”, the new movie with George Clooney. Well, it certainly wasn’t what I expected… which is usually pretty bad. But first things first.
The marketing campaign and the trailers suggested a “lone assassin type guy shoots his way around for ultimate redemption”. Well, WRONG. Not the redemption part, but the rest.
When the movie started with a nice scene in the snow which turns into a shootout with everybody dead (except the antagonist, of course), I thought that would set the tone for the rest of the movie. However, as our hero goes to Italy, it turns into more of a psychological journey of a damaged man towards redemption of his soul.
The film is nicely executed, the acting is convincing. Everything has this current “greenish” chique-of-the-day color correction, there is a little violence in the beginning, the middle and the end, but the movie doesn’t seem to be able to decide what it wants to be.
It sells itself as an action flick, which it certainly isn’t. It partially is a (twisted) love story, a redemption piece, a bad guys vs. other bad guys…
All in all I didn’t like the story, which kind of ruined the whole movie for me.
Ah well, off to the next movie…
plan.shoot.enjoy
Remo