Iced Americano

For a rough idea of what was going through George Clooney's head when he signed on to The American—apart from the set's proximity to his Italian villa—look no further than the only other American face to appear in the movie. It belongs to Henry Fonda, shown on a flat-panel television in his entrance to Once Upon a Time in the West, at the moment when the beloved Hollywood icon shoots a defenseless ginger child. Clooney's mug is getting nearly as rugged and weathered as Fonda's was in 1968, and he's also indulging in some subversion of his persona. The American opens with Clooney and his lover (Irina Björklund) taking a stroll through the Swedish snow, only to be ineffectually ambushed by some camouflaged gunman. Sensing his cover has been blown, Clooney tells his special lady friend to phone the police, and as she runs off, he sends a bullet going through her head. Whatever you may say of this, it is very un-Danny Ocean behavior. And if you listen closely, you can hear director Anton Corbijn whispering in his ear: "Do it, George. It's for art. "

Even in these first moments, The American has begun to go subtly awry. Clooney's cold-blooded killing is a shock, but Corbijn presents it without context—with no unguarded interaction between the characters—so the betrayal has no real effect. It merely announces that this will be a serious movie: still middlebrow, but no fun at all. Corbijn's last feature, the Ian Curtis biopic Control, marked the debut of an album-cover photographer-turned-filmmaker who repeatedly confused intensity of imagery with human meaning. (Dig those black smokestacks! Man, Joy Division must have been really sad!) Here he compounds that mistake by making a spy picture slow and mannered enough to expose its fundamental silliness. The American is proof that a movie can be expertly stitched, pressed and tucked, but still carry on its sleeves a distinct whiff of the ridiculous. It's John le Carré loopy on Ambien.

"You have been a great sinner," a priest tells Clooney when he arrives in an Apennine mountain village. "You are still sinning." He should know: The good father is played by Italian actor Paolo Bonacelli, who starred in Passolini's 1975 Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, in which his character forced a captive teenage girl to literally eat his shit. If this guy says you're a sinner, you've done some sinning. But it's hard to say what Clooney's done—other than executing his girlfriend; that was wrong, certainly. He's an assassination expert of some kind, assigned to procure a rifle for his handlers. (This might be really bad, but the movie—and this is truly out of character for Clooney—has no political consciousness.) He likes to visit a local prostitute (Violante Placido), and do her from behind. He has a tattoo of a butterfly on his back. People call him "Mr. Butterfly." I'm getting irritated again as I type this.

Oh, not everything is tiresome. Martin Ruhe's cinematography has a crisp, autumnal light, and Corbijn can neatly direct foot chases and bedroom scenes. The buxom Placido gets naked, often and zestfully, and she briefly aroused me from boredom. But The American moves at a caterpillar's pace, announcing its importance with every ominous rendezvous over cappuccino. (In a typical scene, Clooney scouts a pay phone, and looks at a tractor driver. Then the tractor driver looks at him. Then he looks at the tractor driver.) In this way it is similar to Jim Jarmusch's empty The Limits of Control, but without even that film's avant-gardeambitions. "I'm here for my pleasure, not for yours," Clooney tells Placido, and I believe him about the second part. The American is another joy-denying film. I think it was Christopher Hitchens who said that "the four most overrated things in life are Champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics." At least Clooney doesn't have the lobster.

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is rated R. It opens Wednesday at Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Evergreen, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Lake Twin, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Roseway, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard and Wilsonville.

WWeek 2015