Murder and the Meaning of Life

"The American" Review

By Bill Caton

I wondered for a while, as I watched “The American,” for whom the George Clooney character worked. Some government agency? An international conglomerate willing to kill for power and money? Then I realized that this man’s employer – for that matter, his existence – should not be of great concern.

Yet “The American” is incredibly suspenseful. A jittery, gum-chewing Jack/Edward (the secretive multi-named Clooney character) remains in motion, always working at his job, always working at staying alive. And the question remains: Why?

The movie opens with Jack/Edward finding himself in a scrape with a couple of assassins while walking in the snow with a female “friend.” He is alert, paranoid, nervous, twitchy, sensing danger like a mouse in a room with a cat. An extremely dangerous mouse. Jack/Edward’s priorities are made clear early.

After a conversation with his boss/handler Pavel (Johan Leysen) Jack/Edward finds himself in a small Italian mountain town with Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), a knowing priest with a past, and Clara (Violante Placido), the sweetest whore-with-a-heart-of-gold you ever saw. The town seems to be decaying back into the beautiful countryside from which it was built.

As always, Pavlo has a job for Jack/Edward, this time to make a weapon for a beautiful assassin named Mathilda (Thelka Reutlan). People show up to kill Jack/Edward, and we begin to suspect that forces with long tentacles are arrayed against him. Clara is in a position to see a tattoo and calls Jack/Edward Mr. Butterfly. When another woman used that name I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.

The suspense builds like a song in “The American.” The character’s skill, intensity and focus rise to the level of greatness. This man could be Mozart or De Vinci, but the use of his talent is so absolutely without merit, without reason that he seems unworthy to occupy space.

Father Benedetto -- being a man who has lived in this world, has made mistakes and who has earned the right to return gently to the Earth -- cares for Jack/Edward. He delivers a message in a garden about God’s love and his certainty that – after observing such a wretched life as the hero’s – there is a hell because Jack/Edward lives in it. Jack/Edward – who is portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light because of inklings of change -- replies that he has had cause to do everything he has done. Cause?

“The American” is a great movie. And as great movies often do, its central mystery remains unsolved:  Why does a man so dead fight so hard to stay alive?