REVIEW: The American

THE LONE RANGER

George Clooney assembles a specialised gun in Anton Corbijn's The American with as much precision as he packs his bag in Up In The Air. It's important to watch him do that, because for a large part of the film, that's all he does, sitting alone in a quaint Italian village peopled by a noble priest (who looks remarkably like Alfred Hitchcock) and prostitute (played by an actress curiously named Violante Placido), both of whom take an unnatural liking to this stranger. He's called Jack or Edward and he may be neither. The film reveals nothing of his past and very little even of the assignment he's actually sent on. But there's another sinfully pretty woman (Thekla Reuten) who keeps showing up with different coloured hair and speaks cryptically about the said gun. They even go for a practice session on an idyllic lake in the forest filmed with much diffused light, which hosts an endangered butterfly (case of overt symbolism).

It's meant to unravel like a European art-house film that's only incidentally a thriller, but more a precise character study of a trained assassin. So there are protracted silences, much drinking of coffee, brooding and creasing of forehead (Clooney is in grave danger of doing little else in his career, if he continues taking himself this seriously) and oblique conversations about faith, love and damnation. There are good-looking men and women scattered across the picturesque countryside, many of whom are trying to eliminate Clooney, for reasons the film doesn't care to address. Nor does it give us a definitive perspective of the angst-ridden protagonist, alienated, isolated and terribly lonely. Perhaps he is, but the director can't make us feel for his plight. 

On the other hand, it's wonderful to watch a film where people don't talk, and much is left to your imagination. You don't want ready made answers. You're happy to observe this somewhat anxious aging man struggling to survive, without really having much meaning to his existence. He's reached that point in life where the ominous-looking man he apparently works for (Johan Leysen) tells him early in the film that he's losing his touch. But what does a hitman do when he starts to lose his touch? Can he get out? Can he go back to being a regular retired civilian? Do his instincts start failing him? 

The American explores all of this as Clooney, cut off from the action (yet, paradoxically, never far from it), exercises, sleeps fitfully with his gun always close at hand, roams the sleepy hilltop village and looks at the world with wary eyes, and then sits at the table to fashion his masterpiece from automobile spare parts. 

Clooney is a star. And no matter how hard he tries to underplay those stock mannerisms and sink into the character's despair, there's no getting past his gorgeous face, body (which he keeps displaying to our distraction) and aura. Which, in turn, eats away into the pathos of The American. Can't fault him for not trying, though.