| The American | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Anton Corbijn |
| Produced by | Anne Carey Jill Green Ann Wingate Grant Heslov George Clooney |
| Screenplay by | Rowan Joffé |
| Based on | A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth |
| Starring | George Clooney Violante Placido Thekla Reuten Paolo Bonacelli Irina Björklund |
| Music by | Herbert Grönemeyer |
| Cinematography | Martin Ruhe |
| Editing by | Andrew Hulme |
| Studio | This is that Smokehouse Pictures |
| Distributed by | Focus Features |
| Release date(s) | September 1, 2010 |
| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Italian |
| Budget | $20 million[1] |
| Box office | $67,876,281[2] |
The American is a 2010 American thriller film directed by Anton Corbijn and starring George Clooney, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido, Irina Björklund, and Paolo Bonacelli.[3] It is an adaptation of the 1990 novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth. The film opened on September 1, 2010.
Contents |
Jack (George Clooney), a gunsmith, is relaxing in a remote cabin in Sweden with his lover and friend, Ingrid (Irina Björklund). As they walk on a frozen lake, Jack detects a sniper, who opens fire as the couple run to safety. Jack kills the sniper and then, in a terrifyingly cold blooded fashion, shoots his friend and lover Ingrid in the back of the head, after deceiving her to go and get help, as well as another armed man on a nearby road. He then flees to Rome and contacts a "business associate" named Pavel (Johan Leysen). Pavel insists that Jack cannot stay in Rome, gives him the keys to a Fiat Tempra and sends him to Castelvecchio, a small town in the mountains of Abruzzo. Pavel tells him "Don't make any friends, Jack... you used to know that," blaming Jack's recent loneliness and vulnerability to his last assassination attempt. Jack becomes nervous, and, disposing of the cell phone which Pavel had given him, goes to nearby Castel del Monte instead.
While he is hiding out there, Jack is "befriended" by an elderly priest, Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), even though he resists said befriending. Father Benedetto pressures him to seek absolution, something which Jack, now going by the name Edward and posing as a photographer, resists. Jack contacts Pavel, who sets him up with another job. He meets with a woman, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), who wants him to build a custom-designed sniper rifle for an assassination. Jack goes to a car repair-garage run by Father Benedetto's nephew. It is there that Jack obtains miscellaneous hadware needed for the customization of the rifle; He then begins working meticulously on the weapon – a Ruger Mini-14 carbine with folding stock. He also starts patronizing a prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido). Clara and Jack begin a torrid sexual relationship, and in one of their scenes together Clara is seen tracing with her fingers a butterfly tattoo on Jack's neck. Jack meets with Mathilde to test the weapon he has made. Mathilde is about to crush a white butterfly which has alit on her sweater, but Jack stops her and says, "it is endangered." Mathilde is impressed by the accuracy provided by the weapon's suppressor, but asks that Jack make a few more adjustments, but not before asking Jack to test the weapon by shooting very close to her.
While having coffee one day, Jack bumps into Clara and a friend. Clara invites him on an actual date, and the two begin a "friendship," ie, a relationship. Later that night, Jack realizes that he is being followed by an assassin, whom he kills. After the incident, Jack begins to become suspicious of Clara when he finds a gun in her purse and sees her meeting with some men. He takes her on a picnic, where he confronts her about her pistol. Clara explains that she has the gun because of a number of assaults on prostitutes which have occurred in the area, and that the men were cops investigating the case.
Jack talks to Pavel one last time, asking how the Swedes have possibly found him. Jack agrees to deliver the weapon to Mathilde as his last job, but at the last moment he reopens the briefcase and modifies the sniper. At the drop-off, Jack becomes suspicious that Mathilde plans to kill him when she excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Before anything can happen, a busload of school children arrives, and the two go their separate ways. While driving away, Mathilde is contacted by Pavel, who asks if she has killed Jack. She informs him no but insists that she is following Jack and will kill him.
Clara surprises Jack in the crowd at a local religious procession. He kisses her and asks her to go away with him. She joyfully agrees. Meanwhile, Mathilde is lurking on a nearby rooftop, attempting to fulfill her orders from Pavel to assassinate Jack, with Jack in the sights of the weapon he has just delivered to her. When Mathilde pulls the trigger, the gun misfires and explodes in her face due to Jack's adjustments. Seeing her fall from the roof Jack tells Clara to go to the river where they had picnicked and wait for him. He runs up to Mathilde, who is dying on the pavement, and asks her who she works for. With her final breaths, she says, "The same man as you... Jack."
As Jack goes to meet Clara, he notices that Pavel is following him. Pavel opens fire, but Jack spins and shoots Pavel in the head, killing him. As Jack drives desperately to meet Clara, he realizes that one of Pavel's shots hit him in the abdomen. As Jack arrives at the picnic spot and sees Clara standing, he collapses on the steering wheel and horn, hand reaching for the windshield. Clara sees him collapsing and runs screaming to the car. The film ends with a long shot of a sole butterfly ascending skyward.
Once Upon a Time in the West, with Henry Fonda facing off as villain in a gunfight, is playing on a television on the back wall of a modest restaurant where Jack has been, alone. As Jack then pays, the proprietor says "Sergio Leone. ... Italian," and Jack acknowledges the information with a nod and a click of a coin on the counter. As the door then closes behind Jack the gunfighter onscreen, now seen from outside through the restaurant window, fires his long-barreled pistol directly at the camera, whiting out the TV screen and with the report coinciding with the door-slam. Director Corbijn in the DVD commentary noted this homage and said the American Western and more specifically the Italian-American so-called spaghetti westerns produced by Leone and others were explicit models for The American. Corbijn also noted the Ennio Morricone scores which became famous for Once Upon a Time in the West and other Leone titles like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.[4]
The Western movies theme of the "lonely gun slinger" skulking through the cruel and unforgiving desert, surrounded by potential enemies and foes, where friendship and love can act to leave one vulnerable and weakened, is interwoven through this film and many of the underlying themes of those westerns are interspersed throughout "The American."
Speaking of the narrow, labyrinthine streets of the Italian hill towns where much of the action of The American occurs, Corbijn said he was thinking, in filming, of the streets of Venice and the way they appeared in Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973).[4]
Filming began in Septemer 2009 and took place in Castel del Monte, Abruzzo, Sulmona and Campo Imperatore in the Province of L'Aquila; in Rome, and in Östersund, Jämtland and other locations.
The "most romantic moment," per Corbijn, of the film -- when Jack takes Clara to a restaurant of her choice, their "actual date" above -- was filmed at a restaurant in Pacentro, Italy, near Sulmona. Pacentro is known for among other things being the town from which entertainer Madonna's father hailed. The comic-acting waiter in this restaurant scene was directed to stand in front of a two-bulb lamp fixture so that he appeared to have "devil's horns." Photographs on the restaurant's walls are reportedly of all the lovers of an early-20th-century poet from the town. Clara orders Montepulciano d'Abruzzo wine for the dinner, and Corbijn said the film's company enjoyed many of the fine wines of the region during the months of production there.[4]
The film score was written and composed by German singer-songwriter (and longtime friend of Anton Corbijn) Herbert Grönemeyer. A 1967 song called "Window of My Eyes" by the Dutch blues band Cuby & the Blizzards is played over the ending credits. The aria "Un bel dì vedremo" ("One fine day we'll see"[5]) from Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly can be heard in the background of one scene and "Tu vuò fà l'americano" in another. In another scene the Italian song "La Bambola" by Patty Pravo plays.
The first official poster was released on June 17, 2010. The first trailer was attached to Robin Hood and the second official trailer on June 19, 2010 and was attached to Jonah Hex, Grown Ups, Inception and The Other Guys.[6][7]
The American received a generally positive response from critics, garnering a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 203 reviews with an average score of 6.5/10.[8] Its consensus states "As beautifully shot as it is emotionally restrained, The American is an unusually divisive spy thriller—and one that rests on an unusually subdued performance from George Clooney."[8] Similarly, another review aggregator, Metacritic calculated an average score of 62 based on 35 reviews.[9] Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film two and a half stars, writing director Anton Corbijn "holds his film to a steady, often glacial pace," and is of "startling austerity."[10]
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, writing, "Here is a gripping film with the focus of a Japanese drama, an impenetrable character to equal Alain Delon's in Le Samouraï, by Jean-Pierre Melville."[11] Leonard Maltin called it a "slowly-paced, European-style mood piece, short on dialogue and action and long on atmosphere."[12]
The film grossed $13.1 million opening at #1, ahead of Machete which grossed $11.4 million on the Labor Day weekend. The American grossed a total of $65,464,324 worldwide – $35,606,376 in North America and $29,857,948 in other territories.[2] The film was given a R-Rated rating by MPAA for sexual scenes and strong nudity.
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 28, 2010.