The American

Sensory Under-load.

Jack (George Clooney) works as an undercover assassin and is on an assignment in Sweden when things go horribly awry. Jack quickly cleans up the mess and seeks refuge in a small Italian town. While in hiding, his boss calls to give him an assignment and an easy one at that: to build a gun for a fellow assassin. Jack agrees on the condition that this is his last assignment. The deal is sealed as long as Jack agrees to stay out of sight. But Jack’s weakness for a beautiful woman (Violante Placido) may, or may not be, the death of him…. literally.

I know I’ve been on a negative movie reviewing streak lately so when I watched The American the first time through, my first thought was, “Well here comes yet another negative review.” But after doing a bit of research, I discovered a few key items that brought the movie to a new light. First of all, it’s not meant to be an American spy movie with state of the art weaponry, slick cars, and fast women. It’s meant to be an Italian drama/suspense movie. And second, the writer wants the audience to be able to catch certain clues along the way, you know kind of like what it was like to watch a suspense movie before we were exposed to the next generational technology gadgets. So after reading this, I can see why the film got 7 out of 10 stars. Additionally, Clooney and Placido have incredible on-screen chemistry and the actors did a great job especially since a lot of the scenes weren’t drummed up with lots of special effects and music. Taking on a sort of “Hitchcock” type of movie where the suspense is built by the actors acting and not the music or the background white noise that are inserted to manipulate the way that we, the audience are supposed to feel. So yes, the second time through watching The American I was much less bored and even quite intrigued. Regardless of your own scale of boredom throughout the movie, you will at the end, reflexively put your hand to your gaping mouth and say, “no way!!!”

Motherly Advice: I had all of my filters set on medium and I was spared just a couple of “f” words and a few religious expletives. But this movie wasn’t rated R for the language, nope it’s rating is due to the nudity. However, because of Clearplay I was spared, thankfully, a whole lot of nudity and one pretty explicit sex scene. What you will see though are gunfights, lots of them, and brief glimpses of the shot victims. I would recommend The American for ages 17 and up.


Trisha ~ Proud to admit that I’m still Clooney’s #1 fan!