The American

Pleasingly downbeat and 3/4 a very good film indeed, The American is torpedoed by one of those male fantasy subplots where the protagonist falls in love with a beautiful prostitute (OK, this may be the fault of the book but it's not mitigated by the filming) It's like a DTV erotic drama has taken a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of an existential thriller. Hitman Jack is ruthless, taciturn and increasingly suspicious, bordering on paranoid (quite rightly it turns out) He's a stone-cold killer who is in turn hunted - for reasons unknown to the viewer - by "the Swedes". He's frequently isolated within the frame and Anton Corbijn is particularly good at evoking the threat lurking within open spaces. There's an air of foreboding throughout and we instinctively know that redemption will not be forthcoming. Not with those hard eyes, that grimly set mouth. Even that annoying romantic subplot has one benefit: in the final sequence George Clooney gets to convey Jack's growing sense of despairing desperation as he attempts to reach Clara. It's a terrific piece of acting: a man who knows he's doomed, realizing the future is slipping out of his grasp yet refusing to give up.