Micro Review: The American

The American starring George Clooney and directed by Anton Corbijn is a visually stunning film, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wins Oscars for its look. The dialogue between the main characters is spare, and their interactions, believable. Clooney may be nominated for this role, but he won't win. Again.

Thematically, the film addresses the possibility of redemption and change, using traditional symbols. Clooney's character Jack (Edward) has a tattoo of a butterfly, reads a book about butterflies during the film, marvels over an endangered butterfly during a picnic with client Mathilde, and is called "Mr. Butterfly" (or the Italian "farfalla" by two characters, Mathilde and Clara.

It is precisely things like this heavy-handed use of symbols that should cause the movie to be retitled For Americans rather than The American, because it uses symbols so clumsily in order to have a wider appeal to a generalized American blockbuster audience that might miss things (the kinds of people who complain about "Inception" being too complicated).

The audience this film was made for needs to be told by a bartender that a Sergio Leone spaghetti western is playing in the bar. They wouldn't get it and thus couldn't make the connection between The Man With No Name and The Man Whose Real Name We Don't Know in The American, both of whom are loners competing for a prize, a prize that, for Jack/Edward changes, as he does, during the film's climax.

Despite the film's ability to keep Jack/Edward's life secretive and ambiguous (all we know of him happens in the film's narrative itself), it ultimately falls flat for an informed viewer because it gets to giddy about revealing its contingencies. It doesn't trust the audience enough.