Day #4 - The American

What a perfect day.  I slept in till almost noon.  Spent the afternoon with my girlfriend just being lazy (an event I'm generally not afforded).  Then in the evening we decided to travel down to the big city to catch a movie.  Before that we stopped by the bookstore and I picked up copies of "Filmmaker" & "Film Comment" magazines.  After that I took her to a wonderful restaurant and we shared a bottle of wine and we each had steaks that absolutely melted in our mouths.  Once we allowed some time for gestation to take place we went to the mega-plex and saw "The American".

I am generally not the type of guy who will go to a movie based on its stars.  I follow directors more than actors.  I am more likely to see a David Fincher film than I am the new Robert Downey Jr. movie.  There are a few exceptions to that rule.  Joseph Gorden Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tom Hardy are examples.  George Clooney is another.  I admit, he is my man crush.  He is my generations Paul Newman, and I know that is blasphemy for many but he has careless charisma and charm in his back pocket.  He can be tough as nails in one scene then guarded and vulnerable in the next simply by twitching a half smile.

This is not to say that Anton Corbijn is a hack.  I quite enjoyed his last feature "Control" about the life of Ian Curtis and his band Joy Division.  He continues with another winner with this film.  I was first struck by his filming of the landscape.  The films open in a snowy Sweden then moves to a small Italian village.  The landscapes are breathtaking and Corbijn captures them in a way that puts you there in the middle.  You can taste the coffee, you can smell the wildflowers, and you can hear every footstep on the stone roadways.  Sound plays of great importance in this movie.  The dialogue is minimal at best.  If I was guessing I would say the script would be comprised of under 25 pages.  Everything is told by second glances over the characters shoulders, or an unexpected pause in a stroll down the twisting, cavernous streets of the city.

Clooney is a gun builder of sorts despite saying on a few occasions that he is bad with machines.  He is hiding from the Swedes due to a botched job.  He befriends a priest in the villa, of as close of a friend as he will allow.  The nature of his work prevents him from allowing anyone to get to close to him.  He also makes nice with a local prostitute played by Violante Placido.  I could write a blog dedicated to miss Placido.  She sets the screen on FIRE with her beauty.  When I say she is breathtaking that is because during one screen I literally began coughing because I forgot to inhale.  I should also mention that her acting was superb. 

Overall I have to say that I loved this movie.  It is packed with dramatic, tense moments.  Corbijn trusts his audience and doesn't' force feed exposition down our throats.  It is refreshing to watch a movie that lets you uncover and build relationships with its characters.  Hollywood, it is ok if we don't know the motives of all the people on screen as long as you provide us with reason for caring about them.  Mr Corbijn realizes this.

This movie had me at Clooney, but it didn't rest on his laurels.  It provided a fresh, smart, engaging thriller.  This is in many ways a throwback to the spy genre of the 70's.  All the way down to the movie poster.  I give this movie a 4.5 /5 stars.  For more please check out the link below for the trailer
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ywmoXZwkA0