Truly Dreadful Film

Touches You

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I am a huge George Clooney fan and have enjoyed just about everything he's done but my God this film is horrendously bad.. The scenes of him being chased and the clip clop of his Florsheims pounding the pavement was laughable at first but grew to becoming almost annoying as the film was.. I'd pass on watching it but that's just MyTwoCent..!

A good rule for movies is that more nudity = less action (and thus, less plot.) That rule holds true here. The movie has plenty of naked women (and a naked George Clooney or two). However, George Clooney's 2- named character escapes Sweden (later, we learn why) to sunny Italy so he can tell his boss he's quitting. By that point, we realize he's a paid assassin, so we all know he's not "quitting." All of the action is in the last 10-15 minutes (10, I think.) Until then, he sits in a cafe, talks with a priest, builds stuff (we do not yet know what until the last 10 minutes), and visits a local prostitute he has the hots for . . . but nothing happens (except nudity.) This movie was made because it has George Clooney; I can't think why he wanted to make it.

Sometimes a George Clooney movie is excellent ('O Brother Where Art Thou'), quite good ('Michael Clayton') or moderately entertaining ('Up in the Air', any of the 'Oceans'), etc. Which is why I had no reservations watching 'The American'. Simply put...huge mistake.What looked promising in the opening ten minutes turned out to be THE most exciting scene in the entire movie. Many adjectives can be applied to this film, and none of them are good ~ choppy, anticlimactic, boring... Perhaps the crux of 'The American' is that so many story lines remained open and unexplained at the conclusion of this disheveled mess for 'artistic sake'. I just found it to be a cinematic waste of Clooney's obvious acting talents.Who knows, perhaps he was offered a fortune to take this forgettable role and that's why he did it. It certainly wasn't to enhance his body of work. In the end gave the flick a VERY generous 3* out of 10, only because both he and the scenery were enjoyable to look at.

Look I love Die-hard and Mission Impossible and , yes Beethoven .But you see a movie like this and you realize what the language of cinema really is. The deliberate use of the camera as a medium to tell a story not just to record images. The space to absorb the experience and appreciate the stunning cinematography.This is Day of the Jackal (the original) but in this case the assassin is not seen as just one dimensional. We really feel what this guy is going through without his having to tell us. Kind of reminds me of the writing of Elmore Leonard where the story drives the characterization. Here the camera does. This is similar in my opinion to the cinematic characterization of Scotty (Jimmy Stewart) in Vertigo.I watch a lot of Grade A junk because hey its fun. But then you hit a Tarantino movie or a Wes Anderson movie or HItchock film like Vertigo and you realize what cinematic story telling is.And when is Clooney gonna get some kind of Oscar. From a kid on an ER show to his movie chops he must get something out of it!