The American

This movie is anything but a thriller. It is not suspenseful, full of action, or anything that makes up what a thriller should be. This does not mean lots of explosions but there should be more than George Clooney walking through the streets or driving in a car.

And the idea of 'indie artsy' as previously stated is exactly what they were attempting to do....which does not a thriller make.

When you are intending to sit through a 2 hour movie, you don't expect to come out exhausted or just freshly woken from a nap...since its almost painful to sit through.

Just went and saw "The American" with George Clooney, Very even paced, spurts of action, very cerebral.
Clooney does a very good job portraying a hit man and a loner that is always suspicious and aware of his surroundings, not willing to leave things to chance.
The bad reviews I believe are from people that need a "Flash Bang" Production, This movies is along the lines of "No Country for Old Men".
Just great acting.

Nothing about "The American" was particularly amusing, thought-provoking, or memorable. In every scene it feels like they were trying to make it feel sort of "indie artsy" but the film just comes off as boring and pretentious. The movie drags on for what feels like forever, with each scene having long and dragged out landscape shots where absolutely nothing is happening. I get it: it's Italy, and Italy is pretty. It's like they decided "hey, people like coffee table landscape books - let's turn one into a movie!"

What little plot the movie has centers around Jack (and his incognito name of Edward, played by Clooney), a man with no past and seemingly no future. He's cold and calculating, but he's not a whole hell of a lot else. You don't get to know him throughout the film, and you don't really care what happens to him. George Clooney loves to take these unnecessarily artsy roles (otherwise known as bad films) and make them work since he's a terrific actor. In "The American" even he falls flat, and his role feels uninspired. If he doesn't care then why should I?

The end of the film offers resolution, but it's of the kind that's going to insult people who cared enough to stay until the end, and insult people who were hoping that they'd pull out some kind of plot near the end. Nothing about this film is good, and I can't recommend that anyone see it.

From the first 10 minutes of this film you will be overwhelmed by the directors attempt at conveying a book to film, you will have no choice but to accept the lack of soundtrack (sound over all), the overdone extended landscape shots and over all boring and sluggish dialogue. Most of the film is set in such a slow pace that I almost fell a sleep, which means the theater seats were more comfortable then the film.

I can't even express whether there was even decent acting in the film, i didn't even pay attention through most of it and yet the story never became unpredictable. The most entertaining part was watching a gun being put together which only took up about 3 minutes even the love scenes felt tasteless and draw out.

Stick to the book and just imagine George Clooney as you read it, I'm sure it would fill you with more emotion and mental entertainment then loosing and 1hr and 45m of you life watching it in the theater.

Off to the bookstore.