Film Review: The American (Spoilers)
George Clooney’s latest is an intensely clever film which forgets it needs to be entertaining. I mean a film which calls itself a thriller about a hitman hiding out in Italy surely needs some actual thrills, no? Instead we have a character study with a surfeit of existential angst, and while it’s shot extraordinarily well by director Anton Corbijn, and Clooney’s performance as a man doing everything in his power to avoid human emotions is highly impressive, the film is dull, lifeless and very rarely interesting.
Clooney plays hitman/armourer Jack/Edward, who is tucked away in the Italian mountains after a failed assassination attempt in Sweden. In the tranquil countryside he is befriended by local priest Paolo Bonacelli (who nearly steals the film from him), whilst working on a weapon for his boss Johan Leysen and his client Thekla Reuten. Alone and forsaking his emotions, he avoids contact with others, yet frequents hooker Violante Placido, who unexpectedly falls for him. Isolated by choice, but affected by the world nonetheless, his well ordered world refuses to stay ordered, under constant threat from unknown assassins, as well as his growing feelings for Placido. When the weapon is completed everything falls apart completely as his last job really does start looking like his last.
People are starting to get fed up of Clooney’s mid-life crisis repertoire now, adept though he may be at portraying them. His Jack/Edward may be charismatic but has very little likeable about him, indeed because of screenwriter Rowan Joffe’s sparse script we barely even get to know him. And Clooney may be mesmerising, but there’s little point to this film – the weapon he works for is ultimately used against him, his love for Placido is ultimately doomed and his friendship with Bonacelli may be peppered with amusing one-liners, but it ends up leading nowhere.
Corbijn gives his film wonderful detail and context – Jack/Edward has a totally fleshed out world in which to reside, but it has no warmth to it whatsoever. That may have been part of the point – a man who eschews emotions to keep himself safe is hardly likely to engage the world emotionally through choice, but it robs the film of entertainment value; there’s only so long you can tolerate him sitting in his room, either meditating or working (and without dialogue) without getting bored quite frankly. Joffe’s script too is painfully obvious – it’s pretty clear from early on that the film is going to be a tragedy (making its thriller moniker quite baffling), but there is almost no character conflict in getting there. The car park face off with Reuten could easily have had more made of it, but even in the final act Corbijn opts for angst instead of dramatic engagement. There are also moments which don’t make sense – Clooney’s behaviour in the film’s finale in particular. There may be high drama (almost the only instance of it) in the lead character knowing he’s about to die, but it’s preposterous to suggest it couldn’t have been avoided.
It has its moments – the burgeoning friendship between Clooney and the priest has some cute moments, and the is-it-a-face-off-with-Placido-or-isn’t-it is gently amusing, but they’re pretty shallow. You never get the feeling that Jack/Edward questions his life or chooses to engage in life until it’s too late, and as a viewer you never see any action until the final act. I admired the sparse script – there was next to no exposition in telling the story, and that’s rare in this day and age, but the absence of warmth, humour or conflict made this a largely (but not entirely) futile experience – I’d have preferred it to have been more than just clever. I’d also like Clooney’s next outing to have some fun again, thanks.
6/10
Film Review: Up In The Air (Spoilers)
George Clooney is the everyman for the 21st century. Who needs Tom Hanks’ cheery optimism when you can have Clooney’s well-mannered disconnection? His Ryan Bingham is a man of the times- a contractor hired by firms to fire their staff in the recession so they don’t have to. Bingham is at home in the sterility of air side America, packaging his existence into his suitcase, living almost the entire year on the road, and measuring everyone else by their ability to navigate speedily through his space. He meets Alex (Vera Farmiga) – his female analogue and every bit his equal, and they begin a sterile, disconnected relationship which suits their needs, and why not? America is thoroughly rationalised, and they count themselves as amongst the tools which keep it that way. They don’t compare feelings, rather travel discount cards, admiring one another through their mutual convenience to each other. Bingham fools himself even into believing he’s doing the people he’s firing a favour, by doubling as a ‘life coach’. Enter Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who derails his feelings and responsibilities-free life by convincing his boss Jason Bateman to pull him and his colleagues off the road, and start firing people by webcam. Before that can happen she must go out on the road with Bingham to try their firm’s new system out on-site, and no longer able to insulate herself from the pain she causes, Natalie is forced to change. She isn’t the only one…
‘Up In The Air’ is a comedy of manners which belts you when you least expect it – the humour is often gently amusing, but make no mistake director and co-writer Jason Reitman has something harsh to say about recession-hit America as it limps into the century’s second decade. Class act Clooney’s charisma would make this work even if the screenplay were a dud, but together they make it sparkle. Clooney’s aloof but amusing observations on his fellow travellers are contrasted with talking heads interviews of those he’s fired, and the cost of his personal success is constantly challenged. With Bingham at the same time the fulcrum between both a bittersweet rom com and an odd-couple film, Reitman runs the risk of trying to make the film do too much, but instead it catches fire. That you can be entertained with laugh-out-loud comedy one minute and ferocious social commentary the next is a testament to all concerned, and the performances are outstanding – Clooney’s well-matched by both Kendrick and Farmiga, and even Bateman reins himself in. Reitman never loses control of the contrasting issues, values and tensions between his three leads, and successfully uses Clooney as the prism through which we view 2010 America; it may be funny and pretty but it’s heartless, unfair and sterile too. He clearly hopes the chastened Bingham we see at the film’s close will one day be matched by his country.
‘Up in the Air’ is at it’s heart a dark tale of dreams lost and dreams discarded. It proves ‘Juno’ wasn’t a one-off, and that old school charm can still successfully underpin even the most biting morality plays. Studios take note.
8.5/10
Film Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats (Spoilers)
They said it would be too similar to ‘Burn After Reading’ for comfort, but they were wrong. This adaptation of Jon Ronson’s book isn’t anywhere near as comic as it’s been marketed as, then again it doesn’t quite work as a deliberately fudged, semi-documentary piece either. That it should entertain anyway and still be funny is entirely down to the boundless charisma of George Clooney, whose presence more than makes up for the script inadequacies and directorial misfires. Ewan McGregor plays Ronson analogue Bob Wilton – a small-town reporter eager to get to grips with his life after his wife leaves him. He decides to go to post-war Iraq, and whilst in Kuwait bumps into Lyn Cassady (Clooney), whom he knew by reputation after covering a kooky paranormal story for the local news some time earlier. Cassady is US Army and on a mission to Iraq, and Wilton hitches a ride with him, only to find out upon entering the warzone just how unconventional Cassady is. Clooney’s character is revealed to be at the core of the clandestine New Earth Army, a genuine covert operation where the armed forces explored developing psychic solutions to take on the Soviets. Is the programme continuing in Iraq?
And this is where the film comes unstuck. Practices developed thirty years ago for this project are being used in Iraq today, but director Grant Heslov never aims for the available satire. Instead he fixates on the Clooney/McGregor road trip, but this has its up and down sides. Whilst it allows Clooney to shine, McGregor’s oddly not up to the challenge, but even then what are we laughing at? The absurdity of the army engaging in psychic warfare? The possibility that Clooney’s insane? You never quite know what you’re supposed to be laughing at other than Clooney. The man clearly has the nutty-yet-still-cool act down pat, commanding the screen both in the present-day and flashback sequences, and as long as the film sticks with the hapless duo it just about works. In the third act however, when Clooney and McGregor bump into the former’s old comrades in Iraq, the film pretty much falls apart as it descends into a farce entirely different in tone to the rest of the film. It’s a horribly jarring shift, which undermines the entire film, despite nice turns by Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey (both of whom are woefully underused). Perhaps Ronson’s book could never have adequately been adapted for the big screen, but equally this film needed to know what it was trying to be in its past and present, yet screenwriter Peter Straughan constantly hedges his bets.
Straughan never quite knows when to be serious and when to play for laughs, and it leaves The Men Who Stare at Goats a disappointing and sometimes dull effort. A film with more conviction about its source material, and less of a last-minute determination to laugh at itself might have been quite impressive. But all the laughs are in the wrong places, leaving you wondering why an A-lister like Clooney should have bothered attaching himself to the project.
6.5/10
