The American (2010)

The American thinks very highly of itself. Inspired by the 70s paranoia thriller oeuvre and star George Clooney’s dedication to the ironically trendy Hollywood Art House movement he and creative partner Steven Soderberg keep trying to usher in, American fancies itself an important character piece, characteristically complex and visually arresting. In some ways it is both those things, but mostly it’s just boring.

Film on TV: Rubicon

You’re all alone on a rainy Tuesday night in NYC. It’s your birthday, but you’d forgotten that until your secretary reminded you that morning at work. She wanted to take you out to lunch. She probably wants more than lunch. But you’re too swamped in your secretive government work identifying and sorting through information to take time off for lunch. And you’re still too hung up on your dead wife and daughter to take time off for her.

So you’re alone on your birthday on a rainy New York night, isolated and removed from the city teeming around you, the places, people and things you study everyday from afar. But then you get a call from your father-in-law / super-secretive government boss, the closest thing you have to family in your life. He’s left a motorcycle for you, parked outside your apartment. He tells you he wants you to get on that motorcycle and fly away from here. Start over someplace new. He wants you to start LIVING. But you have no idea what that means...