The American

George Clooney is Alain Delon in The American.

Yes, his character’s name is Mr. Butterfly and his character is, well, American.  But this doesn’t feel like an American film.  It feels like a French or Italian film, a Le Samourai or Rififi.  And Clooney feels like an older Delon in it.  He has the looks, talent, and charisma of a bona fide movie star, and he’s finally getting old enough to be interesting.

The film is set in rural Italy, a small town called Castelvecchio where Clooney, a killer and a very bad man, hides after a job gone wrong.  It’s adapted from a book entitled A Very Private Gentleman; and Clooney is private, indeed.  He walks alone.  He dines alone.  He even screws alone, flatly declaring to his prostitute of choice that he’s there for his pleasure, not hers.  But the local priest takes an interest in him.  The prostitute takes an interest in him.  Soon, he’s not so private any more.  This can’t end well.

But enough of the plot teaser.  What you really need to know is that The American is a pleasure and a delight.  It is so wonderful to see a film that’s pitched toward adults for a change.  Yes, The American underlines things for an American audience that, perhaps, an Italian neorealist crime drama or a French noir might leave implied.  Nevertheless, here’s a film about grownups who react in grownup ways to grownup situations.  When the priest looks into Mr. Butterfly’s eyes and tells him that’s he’s empty, that he has nothing, we look into Clooney’s eyes and we see it.  When the spark of a soul begins to glow in those eyes, we see that too and the actor doesn’t need to sing in the rain to show it to us.

Yes, The American is for Americans.  There are chases and gunfights and nudity that I’d call superfluous if the actress under discussion wasn’t so statuesque that she could’ve made And God Created Woman.  But it isn’t all chases and gunfights and nudity.  Much of it concerns itself with the slow reawakening of a damned soul.  It’s fabulous, classic stuff.  Alain Delon would have been proud to star in it.