Do not expect either action or thrill from this movie: despite trailers, the movie proceeds with a very slow pace, very little dialogue, very little action, long silences, putting to the test your patience. But if you do not have this kind of expectations, if you appreciate movies disregarding all these elements, or simply think that silence, and pauses have their own meaning, you will probably find the picture worth seeing. It is more a character study, focused on the killer Jack, or Edward, and his impenetrable nature, a nature we will not be able to get, not even in the end, where only his desperate need for love and a for normal life will be more evident. Clooney delivers a truly convincing performance, he gets to communicate with his face and his body, we feel his character's tension hiding behind an always alert and controlled life. We feel a contrast between his entrapped life and the open space in southern Italy where he comes to live for some time. And, as an Italian, I cannot but appreciate the idyllic landscapes of Abruzzo, a land so much wound by a terrible earthquake last year. The director also chose some Italian cast: Violante Placido as Clara and Paolo Bonacelli as father Benedetto appear good and give credibility to their roles. In the end, the whole story is tightly handled, and may give the impression of being too controlled, too minimal, as if it were the result of an eliminating process, in order to get to the essential, but I think this is its best and most effective quality. Used as we are to being given, in movies too, the excess, the unnecessary, the redundant, in situations and dialogues, here the preciousness of the essential, but the significant emerges through slowness and discretion: rare qualities nowadays.
Review of The American
