{"id":530,"date":"2010-09-02T07:46:14","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T14:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=530"},"modified":"2010-09-02T07:46:14","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T14:46:14","slug":"daily-dose-review-the-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=530","title":{"rendered":"Daily Dose Review: THE AMERICAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nTHE AMERICAN is a boring film. However, it is very well made and features a careful, studied performance by one of America\u2019s biggest movie stars. This is a film that\u2019s all form over substance.<\/p>\n

A mysterious professional killer, let\u2019s call him Jack (George Clooney), has become disillusioned with his career. Jack can\u2019t make friends because he\u2019s always the target of other killers. His \u201cfriends\u201d often get in the way, they get dead. After managing to survive an attack by a couple of Swedish killers, Jack takes off for Italy where he meets with another shady guy and gets a new contract. Holed up in a charming small town in Italy, Jack meditates on the rest of his life. And while doing it, he makes friends.<\/p>\n

A solemn and largely contemplative tale, THE AMERICAN is the kind of pet project that only George Clooney (who lives in Italy) could get made and released in something more than a limited theatrical manner. Joyless and dark, this movie will make you appreciate other like films (like THE MATADOR) that have some fun with the subject while retaining a measure of serious pathos. The romantic notion of the jet set hitman is still viable, but in the real world, Jack\u2019s life is probably as romantic as it gets. And showing us how it really is just isn\u2019t very entertaining.<\/p>\n

While THE AMERICAN won\u2019t damage the career of the star Clooney, it will not please his mass audience who expect that this will be something like RONIN meets THE BOURNE IDENTITY. Instead what we get is a very good performance by Clooney without the trademark wise-cracks and swagger. It is a failed experiment but not one without interest. Although there are plenty of fun projects in the hopper for Clooney, the next one will likely be the Alexander Payne film THE DESCENDANTS. That one promises more pain and suffering that has become director Payne\u2019s calling card. And while the beaten and introspective incarnation of the movie star Clooney is impactful (call it his acting side), most of us want to see the wise-guy. THE AMERICAN is not the George Clooney you know and love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contemplative and boring but not without interest based on Clooney’s meditative performance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions\/535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}