Like Clint Eastwood before him, George Clooney possesses the chiseled looks and hypnotic eyes meant for spaghetti westerns. No dialogue is required because mere expressions convey every emotion simmering beneath his ruggedly handsome face.
It’s a quality that Tony Gilroy so perceptively picked up on in “Michael Clayton,” and is similarly exploited by Anton Corbijn in “The American,” an eerily silent thriller in which the actions of Clooney’s stoic assassin, Jack, express far more than words.
He makes the quiet deafening right from the opening scene, when the silent tranquility of a snow-crested Swedish wilderness is shattered by the startling sound of gunfire. Soon the pure white is blemished with blood and Jack’s conscience is stained with a hit man’s rare moment of regret.
It’s a shocking display of violence that instantly signals that the cute, cuddly Clooney from “Up in the Air” and “Oceans 11” will not be making an appearance. Instead, we get a wonderfully enigmatic soul, who keeps his enemies close and his friends afar.
That’s where the eyes come in handy in providing a window into Jack’s tortured soul. Like Michael Clayton, Jack is tired of being the conduit for the nefarious actions of his handlers. His hands are caked in blood and, as Pontius Pilate can attest, they are not easily washed.
That doesn’t stop him from trying once he arrives in the mountain paradise of Abruzzo, a land of exquisite beauty that Pilate himself may have roamed as a member of the Roman Empire. The place is stunning, a mix of Escheresque medieval architecture and panoramic vistas that rank among God’s most wondrous creations.
It is here that Jack has come to both carry out his latest assignment and recover from the psychological wounds left by a hit gone wrong. There, conveniently waiting to assist him in this spiritual journey is a pair of clichés in the form of a kindly, old priest and an impossibly beautiful hooker with a heart of gold.
Because Paolo Bonacelli and the oft-naked Violante Placido so vividly flesh out their respective roles, you forgive the lack of originality in Rowan Joffe’s middling adaptation of Martin Booth’s source novel, “A Very Private Gentleman.” What you don’t absolve is the film’s utter lack of energy and momentum.
The tone is as laid-back as the Abruzzo countryside, as Corbijn (“Control”) consistently allows scenes to drag on, belaboring the point that Clooney’s Jack needs healing. Not to mention a pair of eyes in the back of his head, as forces that would like to see him dead follow him to the breathtaking Castel del Monte, an ancient hillside village with narrow cobblestone paths and assorted secret nooks and crannies rife for would-be assassins.
