Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The American (2010) - Corbijn and Clooney's paper-thin, boring, pretentious hitman outing

6/07/2016

The American (2010) - Corbijn and Clooney's paper-thin, boring, pretentious hitman outing

♥♥

The artsy, uninformative poster for Anton Corbijn's The American

QUICK REVIEW:

The American is the second feature from Dutch filmmaker Anton Corbijn (Control (2007)). It is an adaptation of Martin Booth's (Snath (1975)) novel A Very Private Gentleman (1990)) by Rowan Joffe (Before I Go to Sleep (2014)).

An American hitman is hunted in Sweden and escapes south to Rome in order to complete a last hit, while also indulging in the company of some lovely ladies.

Inept, pretentious and worst of all a frightful bore, The American snails its way ahead as sort of like a James Bond film stripped of all the fun. It has absolutely no humor, exciting action, a good villain or anything else that might make it entertaining in any meaningful way. It just has George Clooney (The Descendants (2011)) with a surly stone-face, dabbling around like some sunglass model in Corbijn's vacuous spaces. Not even a world star of his stature can make an audience member such as myself interested in this aggressively unappealing 'hero'. SPOILER He begins by shooting a beautiful, innocent women, - in the back, no less, - without ever letting us understand why, and he then continues his uncouthness in the presence of, among others, a Catholic father.
All of this apparently originates from the wish to make an homage to Clint Eastwood's character in Sergio Leone's westerns with him from the 1960s, but it is really no excuse for a film as flimsy as this.
The American's sole qualities lie in its undeniably beautiful Italian locations and consistent cinematography, by Martin Ruhe (Harry Brown (2009)).

Related review:

Anton Corbijn: A Most Wanted Man (2014) - Hamburg anti-terror spies in lean, serious picture
Control (2007) - Ian Curtis' youth, love and music as the front man of Joy Division

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 20 mil. $
Box office: 67.8 mil. $
= Box office success
[The American was released September 1 and runs 105 minutes. It was shot from September - November 2009 in Sweden and Italy. It opened #1 with a 13.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 35.6 mil. $ (52.4 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 4.6 mil. $ (6.8 %) and France with 3.9 mil. $ (5.8 %). Because it was made for a remarkably low budget for a mainstream star-vehicle, it emerged a commercial winner. Roger Ebert, mysteriously, awarded the film a perfect 4 out of 4 stars in his review. The American is fresh at 66 % with a 6.5 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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6/07/2016

The American (2010) - Corbijn and Clooney's paper-thin, boring, pretentious hitman outing

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