Earlier today, I had the misfortune to sit through the just released movie The American.

The title character, as played by George Clooney (who also produced the film), is an aging assassin.  He’s done some bad, bad things and, as a result, he has some bad, bad people after him.  So, he hides out in an isolated, Italian village.  He makes friends with the local priest, engages in some shady business of some sort with a mysterious woman (Thekla Reuten), and of course falls in love with the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold (Violante Placido).  The whole time, the American is aware that his days are numbered and that he can trust no one.

And who really cares?

Director Anton Corbijn appears to be trying to do an homage to the noir-influenced French New Wave of the late 50s and 1960s but he seems to have forgotten that Jean-Luc Godard’s and Francois Truffaut’s films were usually as entertaining as they were intellectually stimulating.   (This, of course, is something that Godard forgot as well.)  As a result, The American often feels like a parody of an art film.  Every scene drips with great importance and all the actors play their roles like they’re in a passion play but, in the end, it’s just a lot of pretension that ultimately adds up to nothing.

As a movie, the American is pretty to look at but I lost interest in it fairly early.  Corbijn tries to create an atmosphere of ennui but the end result is simply dull.  Clooney attempts to give a restrained performance full of self-loathing and paranoia but he’s miscast in the part.  George Clooney the producer doesn’t seems to realize that Clooney’s essential shallowness is the key to his appeal.  George Clooney comes across as the perfect one-night stand, the epitome of fun-while-it-lasted but nothing to regret once he’s gone.  Whenever Clooney attempts to suggest anything suggesting any greater depth — like in this film — he simply seems lost.

Speaking of lost, so was I as I watched this dull, boring movie.  I’m sure some will embrace this film but for me, I’ll pass.