There is very little about The American that is “American.” Its pacing, character development and minimalist presentation are so foreign to the American audience that it is downright startling that this movie was marketed as an action movie over an artsy foreign drama.
The trailers for The American would have lead a viewer to believe this movie was the realistic and darker equivalent of the James Bond saga, but instead it is an odd and surprisingly slow film about a spy whose identity is compromised- which may seem like a scant rehash of the plot, but that is all that the viewer learns by the end of the movie.
The American’s plot goes nowhere at all. In the course of the movie you don’t learn George Clooney’s character’s actual name, you don’t learn what organization he works for, you don’t learn what he is doing in Italy, you don’t learn why “the Swedes” are after him, nor do you get any kind of explanation for all his strange and annoying mannerisms. (Imagine listening to Clooney tell the entire population of rural Italy he’s “not good with machines,” even after he constructs a sniper barrel out of car parts.)
The American’s supporting cast does little enough to push along Clooney’s arc-less journey. One character who showed promise was Italian prostitute Clara, (Violante Placido) the movie’s major love interest after Clooney violently dumps Ingrid (Irina Björklund) , but her character does not develop at all. At one point, she is seen talking to the film’s seldom seen villains and another spy quips at Clooney with knowledge only Clara could know, yet nothing even comes of it.
And the other characters are no better. Pavel (Johan Leysen), Clooney’s equally mysterious boss, as well as his agent, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten ) act as impromptu reminders that this movie was supposed to have a plot.
The worst by far, however, is the infinitely irksome Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) who serves as Clooney’s conscience in between boring speeches about finding God. He huffs and puffs in his Italian monotone and acts like it isn’t obvious that Clooney is a trained killer, making it almost seem like he is in the wrong film.
To top it off, this movie is littered with silent shots of Clooney’s character shaving, cooking, working out, doing target practice, driving slowly in the pristine Italian countryside and constructing the aforementioned barrel. These shots are admittedly beautiful but so boring and long that any novelty they may have had in an explosion-centered action movie is questionable, much less a slow-paced wreck like The American.