Video review: "The American"

"The American" falls uneasily into the thriller category, but its real thrills happen in between the gunfire.

George Clooney plays Jack -- that's his name, at least some of the time -- a veteran assassin for hire. His last job went bad, some unknown forces are after him, and he's hiding out in a remote Italian village while he waits for more work.

Jack is exacting, meticulous and careful. He does not relish his work but takes pride in doing it well. He has learned through harsh lessons that personal connections are not worth the risk.

But he's getting older, his handler needles him that he's lost his edge, and two denizens of the village end up holding a strong pull for him: The friendship of a kindly priest, and the affections of the local prostitute.

Clooney gives one of his best performances, but it's a severely understated one that shows up mostly in his eyes and a tightening of his jaw. Audiences who have reliably turned out to see the actor in most everything he does largely stayed away this time.

It's their loss: "The American" is a spare, tightly-wound film whose attributes are not immediately obvious. This is less the story of a man who kills for a living, than what that life has extracted from his soul.

Video features are modest in scope, but what there is, is decent.

There are several deleted scenes totaling five minutes. They mostly serve to ratchet up Jack's paranoia.

An 11-minute making-of documentary is fairly standard stuff, though the part about shooting in Italy is enlightening. Everything is much more "informal," one producer says -- which apparently is code for long coffee breaks.

A feature-length commentary track by director Anton Corbijn, a veteran photographer who turned to film late in life, is a bit on the dry side. Could've been much more interesting if they had paired Clooney with him.

Extras are the same for Blu-ray and DVD editions.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Review: "The American"

A man and a priest walk through a lovely Italian park in the first light of morning, talking about sin.

The priest, old and familiar with the myriad weaknesses of men, asks the man if he would like to confess. The man, an American, says that he's had good cause for everything he's done, and turns the tables by needling the priest about his own failings. The clergyman freely confesses to his own sins, and tells the American that even if he is not a believer, he already knows about Hell: An existence without love. This is the man's world on earth.

There is plenty of action and intrigue in "The American," the spare, tightly-wound new thriller starring George Clooney. But I think the scene in the park is where the film's true heart lies. This is less the story of a man who kills for a living, than what that life has extracted from his soul.

Jack -- sometimes that's his name, sometimes it's Edward; others call him Mr. Butterfly -- is a man of precision and suppression. He executes his trade with the meticulous professionalism of craftsman who does not relish the work, but is driven to do it well.

This also requires that he distance himself from others. Jack demonstrates this in an intro scene set in Sweden, in which his calculating actions are far more chilling than the frozen landscape where it takes place.

Clooney, with an understated performance that registers mostly through his eyes and the tightening of his jaw, portrays a man who has literally grown afraid of attachment.

"Don't make any friends, Jack," the hitman's old handler (Johan Leysen) advises. "You used to know that."

After the trouble, Jack decamps to Italy to hide out for awhile and wait for a new job. Soon it arrives in the form of Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), a beautiful fellow assassin. Jack's job is to build her a special custom rifle, which he sets about doing with his usual cold efficiency.

Two people in the village of Castel del Monte complicate things. There is the priest (Paolo Bonacelli), who befriends the strange American who does not seem to need or want friendship, and makes him think about a life beyond the one he knows. And Jack's visits to Clara (Violante Placido), a local prostitute, grow more frequent and progressively less businesslike.

The screenplay -- by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel "A Very Private Gentleman" by Martin Booth -- unfolds in a naturalistic way without any artificial stirring of the plot. Director Anton Corbijn ("Control") finds a way to keep the tension at a high edge, even when Jack is doing something as simple as strolling down the cobblestone street or sipping coffee in a cafe.

The relationship with Clara is typical of this modus operandi. When we first see her, seductively stripping nude for her customer, we think she's just a throwaway character, a demonstration of Jack's need to satisfy basic urges. But he keeps going back to her, and soon she seeks him out on her own, and to our surprise -- and Jack's -- Clara becomes important.

Still, the tension is always there. Even as he's romancing her, Jack suspects Clara of being a plant sent to kill him. A lovely secluded picnic turns into a stomach-churning ticking time bomb.

"The American" falls into the thriller category, but its true thrills are in what happens in between the gunfire.

3.5 stars out of four