I found it as interesting as watching paint dry. I kept watching the clock to see when it would be over. I finally gave up after an hour. Cooney is usually terrific no matter what the part, or movie, but he could not save this movie for me. It had no story, very little dialogue, and it was impossible to even tell what was even really what was going on. No background on clooneys character even , so the viewer was just thrown into the deep end wondering, and waiting, but to no avail. I obviously would suggest passing on this movie for something much better.

Even in 2010 this film must have appeared a bit ( beautifully, gloriously) old-fashioned , like a homage to 70's 'european ' films; 'a gun, a guy, a girl, and you've got a film'. Many of the plot details are a bit improbable, and it's chock-full of genre cliches; a slippery old priest who seems to know more than his prayers, 'working girls' with no discernable clients, sinister emotionless blank-eyed Swedes commissioning crimes, gorgeous girls shed their clothes readily, cut-glass accents, ambivalent actions,.. . and George is having a midlife crisis and, maybe, the rebirth of hope. It's all good- provided you don't expect Liam Neeson/Daniel Craig and some building-shaking subwoofers. There'll probably not be many more films like this made-so enjoy.

The American seemed to have been praise from several critics and some fans alike. However, this film appears to be more of an acquired taste. It was relatively a success at the box office, mainly because of the George Clooney's starpower back then. This film feels at times very slow and there is much silence between the characters where it tries to build of suspense and tension but nothing seems to hit. Having been compared to the Bourne films, the American isn't on that level, as this film is quite boring in some sense and doesn't offer much of anything new. The scenery is quite nice and the acting is fine but overall, the film isn't that engaging and interesting.

Here I am again, again at odds with the great and the good, all of whom seem to think The American is a marvellous film, as do a great many reviewers here. There are, of course, those - 'that's two hours out of my life I'll never get back, dude' and '20 bucks well wasted' - who think the whole thing is boring rubbish, but I'm not with them, either.The problem is that Dutch director Anton Corbijn tries to do something quite specific and simply doesn't carry it off: he seems to think that long, moody scenes where nothing happens except good ole' George Clooney gazing into the middle distance equate with meaning. That's what happens in all the films he admires and attempts to emulate, right? Well, no it doesn't. Or rather, yes, it does, if you can carry it off. Some do, but Corbijn - to my mind at least - misses by a country mile. And as this very slow film shades from improbability to impossibility, it begins to lose whatever goodwill you might have felt when you were a little intrigued by the initial setup. To be frank, the final ten minutes see the whole enterprise inexplicably degenerate from would-be art-house fodder into pretty damn mediocre TV melodrama.For Corbijn's film to work, even if he insists upon cramming it full of pseudo-meaningful languid scenes - in fact to justify all those pseudo-meaningful languid scenes - he must at least do the groundwork, prepare us, the viewers, in such a way that we accept almost without question, for example, the love affair between the nameless American assassin from nowhere and the rather too gorgeous tart. How he goes about doing so, I don't know, but some directors do and pull off what would be a high-wire act. Corbijn does not.I didn't buy the assassin and the tart falling in love and I didn't buy the philosophical talk about sinners the assassin has with the local parish priest. It doesn't ring true and as it doesn't ring true, the film simply fails on the level at which it wants to succeed. Clooney's American is simply too mute to be capable of forming a relationship with the tart or a friendship with the priest.In his meetings with the priest he says so little, I was surprised the old codger invited him for supper. There is no reason whatsover why he should be in the slightest bit interested in this man from apparently nowhere. As for the tart, she, too, I'm sure would have enjoyed a little more chat. In my experience women rather like that sort of thing. Perhaps she knew she was in a moody would-be art-house film. You never know.OK, if you want a thriller, you get one, and if you want mystery, you sort of get one, but I wanted Corbijn to deliver on what he promises, and he just doesn't.There are several glaring instances of outright sloppiness: this all takes place in Italy, a country I know a little, but its Italians are curiously mute. Usually, they are hard to shut up. Then there's the curious lack of interest the local police show in the obvious murder of some guy or other (we're told it's 'one of the Swedes' - more rather spurious mystifying) after a car and Vespa chase. Word would surely have got around about the mysterious American who arrived a few weeks ago who claims to be a photographer but he doesn't take any pictures at all. And he would have been one of the first the local rozzers would have called upon.But there you go: Corbijn's would-be Euro drama has got some of the pieces, but even those slot into the wrong spot. He simply fails to carry off what he attempts. Sad, but true.