The American

johnny_ultimate

Anyone else seen this yet? Butterfly symbolism was a bit heavy-handed on occasion, and it didn't have much new to say narratively, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere. For such a slow paced film it retains a constant sense of tension and paranoia. Clooney doesn't have much to do except for look sullen, but the film is full of atmosphere. Not much happens, but it always feels as if things could explode at any second, and I think the director effectively captured the paranoia of this particular American hitman. Also, the opening scenes were fantastic. Overall, decent if ultimately not that special in any aspect other than atmosphere.

Cianan2

Saw this a few weeks ago, and like yourself found it to be very slow. Despite this fact, I still thoroughly enjoyed it!

I guess after watching the trailer I expected (and was hoping for) a lot more action!

purple_hatstand

The trailer gives you the impression this might be something like a Bourne film which is more than a little misleading. I found the film engaging and the atmosphere of tension and paranoia (as alluded to by johnny) and the isolated nature of Clooney's character reminded me of 'The Day Of The Jackal' and the feel of some of Graham Greene's best work - senses enhanced by the fact that the film is set in Europe.

The film is also stunning to look at - the swedish and italian locations are amazingly beautiful as are the (mostly peripheral) female caharacters and, of course, Clooney himself - and for me, Corbijn is the real star here. A masterful and successful still photographer, he is now proving his artistic capabalities in cinema as well.

Sad Professor

purple_hatstand wrote: »

and the feel of some of Graham Greene's best work - senses enhanced by the fact that the film is set in Europe.

Yeah, the cobbled streets and narrow back alleys, the shadows and sound of footsteps - really reminded me of The Third Man.

I liked the slow pace as well. A lot of modern films are ruined by over-editing imo. There was a nice flow to the film. The plot is as old as the hills, but brilliantly executed. There was a very 70s feel to it. Just the right amount of dialogue, not over-explaining things. Overall I would say it was probably one of the better films I've seen this year.

nyarlothothep

I had to leave early as I couldn't contain myself with laughter for much longer. The south park skit on his smug speech, the new ad with him drinking a cappacino, the brand, the legacy, the prentiousness, it all came together in that film and it was too much. I couldn't look at the screen without snickering. The opening scene has Clooney sitting po-faced beside the fire with his woman, when he speaks he speaks fluent italian, he drinks an expresso in the film and eats fine italian cuisine and wine. The smug was to much for me, it was a homage to Clooney and the euro art house pretensions just compounded it for me. I would have really liked to see how it ended but I just couldn't stop laughing, I was hurting my kidneys and getting heartburn it was so funny/bad, I only got to watch 20 minutes of it, thats all I could take. 10/10 at least for unintentional hilarity.

Tristram

Your post comes across more smug than the movie.

I enjoyed it. That is all.

johnny_ultimate

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I had to leave early as I couldn't contain myself with laughter for much longer. The south park skit on his smug speech, the new ad with him drinking a cappacino, the brand, the legacy, the prentiousness, it all came together in that film and it was too much. I couldn't look at the screen without snickering. The opening scene has Clooney sitting po-faced beside the fire with his woman, when he speaks he speaks fluent italian, he drinks an expresso in the film and eats fine italian cuisine and wine. The smug was to much for me, it was a homage to Clooney and the euro art house pretensions just compounded it for me. I would have really liked to see how it ended but I just couldn't stop laughing, I was hurting my kidneys and getting heartburn it was so funny/bad, I only got to watch 20 minutes of it, thats all I could take. 10/10 at least for unintentional hilarity.

Really? I honestly fail to see how you could find this film 'hilariously bad' or even 'pretentious'. Barring maybe the priest scenes and the admittedly overwrought symbolism I didn't find any of it overly smug. Slow =/= pretentious. The consistently edgy atmosphere was anything but hilarious. Your sense of humour is certainly considerably different to mine then.

gandalf

Saw this last week and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of a film from years ago. No real gimmicks just a solid performance from George Clooney and his Italian co-actors. Yes it is slow moving but it is that type of film. If you go expecting an action fest then you will be disappointed.

If none of that interests you then there still is Violante Placido and Thekla Reuten to keep any warm blooded male happy. Of course the women have George (nearly needed a drool trough for the missus while she watched this!).

nyarlothothep

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Really? I honestly fail to see how you could find this film 'hilariously bad' or even 'pretentious'. Barring maybe the priest scenes and the admittedly overwrought symbolism I didn't find any of it overly smug. Slow =/= pretentious. The consistently edgy atmosphere was anything but hilarious. Your sense of humour is certainly considerably different to mine then.

I don't know why I found it so funny, it was Clooney that made it smug, his smugness spiralled out of control from the very first scene and the film became a homage to all things Clooney. I had to avert my gaze like in raiders of the lost ark because the smugness was just too much to take, each scene reached a new level of smug. I had to leave twice. I'm sure it was a good film though.

pinksoir

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I don't know why I found it so funny, it was Clooney that made it smug, his smugness spiralled out of control from the very first scene and the film became a homage to all things Clooney. I had to avert my gaze like in raiders of the lost ark because the smugness was just too much to take, each scene reached a new level of smug. I had to leave twice. I'm sure it was a good film though.

^
^
^
Some quality independent thought there. Right on.

I thought it was good without being great. Very much a throwback to films such as the Jackal, with good suspense and a feeling of paranoia and isolation throughout. I really liked the locations and it was wonderfully shot.

jeffreylebowski

I quite liked the American for a lot of its running time, but I couldn't help feeling overall that it was something of a misfire.

I liked George Clooney's performance a lot, I thought he got along very well without relying on his customary charm.

The worst feeling I had when watching it was probably the sense that this movie was about forty years too late. It didn't do enough with the formula to make it special, and it was such a retreading of familiar territory that it seemed flat a lot of the time. In particular it reminded me of Le Samourai with Alain Delon.

Also:

I found the ending really irritating, it had that uniform bleakness of the film type it was emulating and felt tragic just for tragedy's sake. It felt very contrived.

I liked a lot of the film, and I'd watch another pairing of this actor/director, but I felt this was a bit of a failed experiment.

copeyhagen

seen it when it first came out, expecting some kind of an action movie, instead was treated to the slowest movie i have seen in years.

quite a number of people got up and left, which i found strange.

watched the whole thing, thought it was 'meh', not the worst film i seen this year but not far off it.

Klingon Hamlet

I loved it, it was slow and edgy and beautiful.

Helium

Each to their own and all that, but I thought it was a load of **** !!

If Clooney wasn't in it would've been a straight to dvd.

NapoleonInRags

gandalf wrote: »

Saw this last week and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of a film from years ago. No real gimmicks just a solid performance from George Clooney and his Italian co-actors. Yes it is slow moving but it is that type of film. If you go expecting an action fest then you will be disappointed.

If none of that interests you then there still is Violante Placido and Thekla Reuten to keep any warm blooded male happy. Of course the women have George (nearly needed a drool trough for the missus while she watched this!).

Yes, Violante was particularly fetching in this movie. Interesting fact about her is that her mother played the part of Michael's Italian bride Apollonia in The Godfather!

LiamMc

I was pleasantly suprised with the film, I thought it would be alot worse than it was. The imagery did remind me of previous George Clooney adverts.

I loved the locations and maybe a clue to why the film was made.

A few cliched standards below:

The prostitute falling in love with Clooney

Poor chase scene that should have had a more untidy end, with carabineri and traffic police investigating

All the bad people had to die

Richard Dower

I'm gonna check this one out, this + Buried + the Sophia Coppola movie.

Richard Dower

So i watched this late last night, some beauitiful shots of rural Italy, i agree it has a very old world feel about it, a bit like The Quiet Man in atmosphere and subtle tension, using the narrow streets and alley ways to gear up the sense of paranoia.

Clooney imo played this very well, he's far removed from his Gorgeous George roles and smary look and deamenour. Here he is paranoid, tortured and quite insecure...especially when it comes to getting a life, love, a relationship etc.

The two female leads are WOMEN, not mid 20's totty....these are mature and stunning Italian women, the pacing is very slow, not many "action" scenes but it's not a fast editing actioneer, it's a character study.

The story is simplistic and nothing new, my only issue is the rather generic prositute story, especially Clara wanting to find a good man to fall in love with etc. - her and Clooney heading off into the sunset, i thought this subplot was just too predictable, even the unhappy ending was expected.

But overall it was rather watchable, Clooney is great, nice locations, beautiful women, story bland but not a bad movie.

Victor

Is it a re-make of one of the older films with the same name? http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=the+american It would certainly give a hint as to its 1970s style and some of the sub-plots.

Richard Dower wrote: »

The two female leads are WOMEN, not mid 20's totty....these are mature and stunning Italian women

Thekla Reuten is Dutch, playing a Belgian. She played the heavily pregnant hotel manager in "In Bruges".

expectationlost

thought it was quite good, quiet and beautiful scenes from anton,

but I presume the guy shot on the moped was the neighbour who earliar tried to school him on italian, but what happened to him, he was shot dead?

and with that and the assassin killed in the car at the edge of town how were there not cops crawling all over the place with him staying around for another few days?

henryporter

A bit too slow for my liking; the gratuitous whipping off the top by Clooney's redemptive harlot reminded me of Maud Lebowski's review of 'Logjamming' - 'ludicrous plot' and the finale could be seen coming a mile off. At times like this you wish Chan-wook Park would put something out to save us from Hollywood

livlondon

I dunno, it just felt bland and without substance. It didn't feel like Clooney was even acting, like he was just phoning it in. I think it could have done with a bit more work on the dialogue (yea yea I know he's in Italy but I don't mind reading... ).

crazygeryy

it was god awful and i agree with the earlier comment if clooney wasnt in it it would be straight to dvd.and i think george is a good actor.come on george make a good movie its been awhile.

expectationlost

come on make an effort it the directors movie and Anton Corbijn has been a photogrpaher for most of his life which explains everything.

Zillah

Bumping this, I just watched it.

I'm a little unsettled. I liked the pace (but I usually like slow movies), many of the visuals were very nice, and most of the acting was great. On the other hand the plot and character seemed pretty poorly thought out (

we've barely met the prostitute and suddenly they're falling in love, the preposterously elaborate gun-buying plot, the totally facelessness of both "the Swiss" and the protagonist

etc), and some of the editing and photography was technically rather poor.

A couple things I think were left too vague:
-

Why the hell did he shoot the woman at the start? Just because she was a witness?

-

Was there ever an original target for the rifle, or was it all a pretense to get close to him?

Generally messy, I enjoyed it but I'll forget it quite quickly.

EDIT: I think it's a stupid name too.

Victor

Zillah wrote: »

"the Swiss"

The Swedes?

Why the hell did he shoot the woman at the start? Just because she was a witness?

He's (rightly?) paranoid. Did she give away his location or indeed, was she part of the plot?

-

Was there ever an original target for the rifle, or was it all a pretense to get close to him?

I think that is part of the mystery of the film. His boss is keeping him calm while he decides what is to be done. Of course, the bird could just be playing with it's food.

Zillah

Victor wrote: »

The Swedes?

Er, yah. I made a mental note to check which and then forgot.

He's (rightly?) paranoid. Did she give away his location or indeed, was she part of the plot?

Nope. Later on he specifically says

she was innocent

.