The American, 2.5/5

I walked into the theater to see The American yesterday with high hopes. The combination of George Clooney and the promise of a smart thriller was enough to lure me to the theater expecting to be dazzled. Perhaps my high expectations led to my severe disappointment when the film finally ended. I wanted to like this one. I really did. I spent the first half of the movie formulating the beginnings of positive reviews in my head, and conjuring up the high praise that I felt sure to give. It was about halfway through the movie however that I realized that this was more than just a slow start. The movie was just slow. It started slow, it continued slow, and had one of the most underwhelming and anti-climatic endings I’ve seen in a long time. But being slow isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and the other ways in which this film failed quite honestly astounded me.
One of the key failures made by most movies is a failure to develop characters beyond basic archetypes. This wasn’t the case with The American. George Clooney and company did a fantastic job of fleshing out their characters, and I felt connected to the main character in a way that I rarely do in movies anymore. The failure lay elsewhere.
The film also contained a strong sense of realism. While I’ve never known any assassins or underground gunsmiths, I’d imagine that Clooney comes as close to real as one can in a movie. I also appreciated the fact that somewhere, someone taught the cast how to handle their prop guns in at least a semi-correct manner. Few things in a movie can annoy me as much as a character that’s supposed to be a professional handling their firearm in a manner that would result in a shot to their own foot. I also find it irritating when firearms are a key topic in the film, and the writer clearly has no idea what they’re talking about. That wasn’t a problem here either.
The film was beautifully shot. Anton Corbijn and his cinematographer deserve a great deal of credit for making excellent use of on location shooting. The scenery was beautiful, and the locations were well chosen.
After praising the good elements of the film, I have to stop for a moment and remind myself that I didn’t like it, and here’s why. There wasn’t a meaningful story. By meaningful story, I really mean any story at all. The film spent all of its time showing the audience what happened, and virtually no time explaining why. The filmmakers tried to be subtle with their references to the protagonist’s past, and they ended up being too vague.
I left the theater thinking: ‘that was a beautiful and well made film, but why did I spend my time and money to watch it?’ That sentiment leads me to give The American a score of 2.5/5, and the recommendation that you wait for the Redbox if you plan to see it.