The American

Perhaps because the late Martin Booth’s novel “A Very Private Gentleman” wouldn’t sell well as a film title, the film version of said novel is now “The American.”

In it, our “hero” is Jack (George Clooney), an assassin who, in his first scene, kills two other assassins and his own female companion in Sweden. His boss, Pavel (Johan Leysen) sends him to Rome to hideout from any potential repercussions. There, he meets Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), who wants him to build her a highly-efficient gun. He also meets a prostitute (Violante Placido), and a priest (Paolo Bonacelli). Thanks to the latter two, Jack, aka Edward, decides he wants out of his dangerous profession.

Yup, that’s pretty much it for the story. There is no major shootouts ala the Bond movies, or a clear-cut sense of plot. It’s just a character study of an assassin, perhaps like if it was James Bond considering retirement one movie after he killed all the real bad guys. On that level, thanks to Clooney, it succeeds.

Its director, Anton Corbijn, has mainly done music videos. To his credit, it doesn’t resemble a full length music video. His cinematographer, Martin Ruhe, and Editor Andrew Hulme, have aided him in constructing a nicely-shot, properly edited story. Thanks to the latter, the film is effectively suspenseful when it needs to be.

It does move incredibly slowly at times. But one should remember that it’s about a character’s life unraveling on-screen. Otherwise, one’ll get lost and confused at times in the plot.