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.

Plot[link]

Jack (George Clooney), a gunsmith, and his lover Ingrid (Irina Björklund) are relaxing in a remote cabin in Sweden. While walking, they are attacked by a sniper. Jack kills the sniper and then shoots Ingrid in the back of the head as she leaves to call the police, and shoots and kills another armed man on a nearby road, stealing his car. He then flees to Rome and contacts a "business associate" named Pavel (Johan Leysen). Pavel insists that Jack cannot stay in Rome, sends him to Castelvecchio (a small town in the mountains of Abruzzo) and tells him "Don't make any friends, Jack." Jack becomes nervous, and, disposing of the cell phone which Pavel had given him, goes to nearby Castel del Monte instead.

While in Abruzzo, Jack (now going by the name Edward and posing as a photographer) 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. He also begins patronizing a prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido) and they begin a relationship separate from her business duties. Jack meets with Mathilde to test the weapon, based on a Ruger Mini-14 (referred to in the film as an M14)^[4]. Mathilde is impressed by the craftsmanship, but asks that Jack make a few more adjustments. Later, Jack realizes that he is being followed by an assassin from Sweden, whom he kills.

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 rifle. At the drop-off, Jack becomes suspicious that Mathilde plans to kill him. Before anything can happen, a busload of school children arrives, and the two separate. While driving away, Mathilde is contacted by Pavel, who asks if she has killed Jack. She informs him she has not, but insists that she is following Jack and will kill him.

In town, Clara meets Jack in the crowd at a local religious procession. He asks her to go away with him and she agrees. Mathilde attempts to assassinate Jack from a nearby rooftop, but the rifle backfires and explodes in her face due to Jack's adjustments. Seeing her fall from the roof, Jack tells Clara to go to a river where they previously picnicked and wait for him. He runs to Mathilde, who is dying on the pavement, and discovers she works for Pavel, the same as Jack does.

As Jack goes to meet Clara, he notices that Pavel is following him. They exchange gunfire, and Pavel is killed. Jack realizes he has been shot in the abdomen, but drives to meet Clara at the river. As Jack arrives at the picnic spot and sees Clara, he collapses. Clara screams and runs to the car.

Cast[link]

• George Clooney as Jack/Edward
• Violante Placido as Clara
• Thekla Reuten as Mathilde
• Paolo Bonacelli as Father Benedetto
• Irina Björklund as Ingrid
• Johan Leysen as Pavel

Production[link]

Filming began in September 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.^[5]

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"^[6]) 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.

"Western" films and other influences[link]

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 eating. 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.^[5] 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).^[5]

Marketing[link]

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.^[7][8]

Reception[link]

Critical reception[link]

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.^[9] 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."^[9] Similarly, another review aggregator, Metacritic calculated an average score of 62 based on 35 reviews.^[10] 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."^[11]

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."^[12] Leonard Maltin called it a "slowly-paced, European-style mood piece, short on dialogue and action and long on atmosphere."^[13]

Box office[link]

The film grossed $13.1 million, opening at No. 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 an R-rated rating by MPAA for sexual scenes and strong nudity.

Home media[link]

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 28, 2010.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• The American at the Internet Movie Database
• The American at Box Office Mojo
• The American at Rotten Tomatoes

The American can refer to the following:

Literature

• The American (novel), an 1877 novel by Henry James
• The American, (novel), a 2006 thriller by Andrew Britton
• The American (2010 novel) by Martin Booth

Media

• The American (magazine), a magazine published in print (2006–2008) and subsequently online by the American Enterprise Institute
• The American Magazine, a literary periodical published from 1906 to 1956
• The American (comics), a comic book series by Mark Verheiden
• "The American", the semi-regular character played by Daily Show producer and comedian Rory Albanese on the Times Online satirical podcast, The Bugle
• The American, a 1999 album by Angie Aparo

Film

• The American (1927 film), a Western starring Charles Ray and Bessie Love
• The American (2010 film), an American thriller directed by Anton Corbijn and starring George Clooney, Thekla Reuten, Violante Placido, Irina Björklund, and Paolo Bonacelli
• The American (TV movie), a 1998 PBS television adaptation of the Henry James novel, starring Matthew Modine

Art

• The American (statue), an unrealized bronze outdoor sculpture planned for Tulsa, Oklahoma

See also[link]

• American (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.