The entire picture relies on Clooney’s characterization, but the script by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth, offers nothing but atmosphere without feeling.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 9, 2023

If you're a fan of Jim Jarmusch and Nic Roeg, you might enjoy what Corbijn is trying to do here. Otherwise, don't bother.

| Nov 11, 2022

Despite its title, The American, is a pretentious European cut. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jul 20, 2022

"The American" plays like a foreign European film, because it is one in every sense of that style. That "style" specializes in the minimal and nuanced, unlike big-budget U.S. films.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 26, 2022

For all the seriousness and atmosphere, there's still a pulpy, page-turner quality to the film's second half - think of the whole package as Bond for the art house crowd.

| Oct 22, 2021

George Clooney + Anton Corbijn = stylish, watchable inertia.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 25, 2021

The story is just generic enough that by the third act, few outcomes are unpredictable.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 29, 2020

Clooney's performance here is so brilliantly understated that there's virtually no chance he will receive any recognition for it.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 2, 2020

... The American is a well-acted, methodical, contemplative and visually interpretive work that, like Jack's namesake butterfly, is an endangered form of filmmaking.

| Nov 13, 2019

While all-American good boy Henry Fonda remained a badass bastard until that film's end, Clooney's Jack's resolve softens and flitters away like an endangered butterfly.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 29, 2019

This is engaging stuff - a compelling and finely tuned thriller that reminds us just what a star Clooney is while deftly deconstructing the very Hollywood persona he represents.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 7, 2019

Whilst the ending exposes the purpose of his last job and hits the intended target with a bulls eye accuracy, I'm afraid that it's a little too late to care when everything comes to a disastrous end.

| Mar 1, 2019

The American is a film in which nothing happens for approximately 110 minutes. For long periods, you could be forgiven for thinking that you had walked into an extended perfume or clothes commercial.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 5, 2018

This is a western wrapped up in an Abruzzo tourism brochure, but that's OK. I now know it's my favourite kind of cowboy film.

| Aug 30, 2018

The American is in fact a double-stunner - a retro-ish Euro-espionage thriller that's written, acted and directed as if it were still 1974.

| Jul 10, 2018

A lethargic work that breaks out intermittently into action and suspense, an American movie for people who don't like American movies.

| Mar 13, 2018

The American doesn't set out to be anything other than a twisty, deliberate film that relies on suspense and paranoia more than car chases and gunplay. The problem is that even on its own artsy terms, the film falls apart long before the end.

| Feb 7, 2018

A lush canvas of verdant riverbanks and dim, foreboding streets at night. The anxious stillness gets under your skin.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2015

Outstanding cinematography and score and excellent acting make for a remarkable movie. The American is a must-see.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 11, 2013

That the film through these slow, poetic paces remains engrossing, engaging, and ultimately oddly affecting is a testament to Clooney's terrific performance.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 13, 2013