JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Photos courtesy of Focus Features

True, you’ll never be able to relax because some mysterious Swedes are out to kill you, and every noise in the night causes you to leap out of bed, gun at the ready. And the local priest keeps trying to pry into your personal history. And everyone in town calls you L’Americano as if you were a diluted espresso. And you’re making a special gun for a beautiful assassin you don’t trust, referred to you by your handler whom you don’t trust, either (Trust being a rare commodity in the assassination business). And you know there are dire consequences.

But it’s George!

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I would pay to watch George do sit-ups”? Now you can make good on that thought.

Directed by Anton Corbijn (who directed a lot of music videos, and that excellent movie about Ian Curtis and Joy Division, Control), The American is the classic man-on-the-run-from-mysterious-forces-who-can’t-run-from-himself story. Wonderfully photographed and acted, except for the priest.

I kept thinking of that old French movie Le Samourai by Jean-Pierre Melville, in which the killer Alain Delon is pursued by a dogged investigator. Minus the long chase in the Paris metro. (Warning: If you watch Le Samourai you will have the overwhelming urge to walk around in a trenchcoat and fedora.) The quarry has to be Alain Delon/George Clooney because if you’re going to make a movie in which nothing much seems to be happening, you’d better have a gorgeous actor for us to look at.

Also, ever read Hemingway’s The Killers?

Movie trivia: Remember in The Godfather where Michael Corleone is exiled to Italy after he whacks the corrupt policeman, and he marries the lovely Apollonia who gets killed by a car bomb? Violante Placido who plays the prostitute in The American is the daughter of the actress who played Apollonia.

The American opens today at Greenbelt 3, Glorietta 4, and Trinoma cinemas. I asked the distributor’s rep why they’re doing a limited run when The American is the number one movie in America. He says it’s because the movie would appeal more to the arthouse than the mainstream audience.

In this context ‘arthouse’ means the filmmaker doesn’t tell the viewer how to think or feel, the music doesn’t swell to indicate that someone’s in love or pound to warn you of danger—You’re an intelligent creature, figure it out yourself.

I predict that the word most often used to describe The American will be ‘existential’ and I am already annoyed.