Reviews

The concept of a 42 minute play in an interrogation room is simple and clever but doesn't allow for decent twists. And as an American it's interesting how useless a European attorney is. Specific to episode 3: it was ironic they chose a native French guy to be the murderous homophobe, when in France today all of the gay bashing is from a... certain religious minority.

After Get Out I thought Jordan Peele might be the new Hitchcock. Now I think he is merely the new M Night Shyamalan. And that's not a compliment. Slow moving, clever, full of holes, great acting, and frustrating. Why did the Tethered seek revenge on their twins and not the unnamed people who did the cloning? Why did she marry that stupid oaf in the first place?

Not a bad murder mystery story, and the actors are great. But it was apparently written by a Labour Party summer intern-the politics are almost comically Progressive. That distracted from an otherwise pretty good story. Spoiler: Note that only 3 UK women died in action in Afghanistan. Though a tragedy, it makes the assassin's trauma a bit far fetched.

If you can get past the weak setup (that is more to satisfy Polanski's anti-American, anti-Bush feelings than to bolster the story), it's a pretty good movie.

But the "war criminal" angle never sold me. Aren't the CIA agents the war criminals? Or, aren't the terrorists the war criminals? Not the British PM. The silly anti-Bush premise seems very outdated just a few months after this movie's release, given that Bush's successor (whom Polanski likely supports vigorously) has carried on the same policies.

But enough politics. The look of the movie is great, the bleakness sets the tone and the location of the PM's house makes it somewhat Hitchcock-like.

I expected George Clooney + Italy + beautiful women + guns = awesome, but somehow they figured out a way to make it = lousy.

"Characterization" is not silently sitting in harshly lit coffee bars, or assembling guns alone, or making small talk and deep looks with an improbably superhot prostitute. Hemingway could be monosyllabic but powerful. This movie is just illiterate.

Ebert's review talks about how the wrong person calls him Mr. Butterfly, and somehow that is evidence of the haunting perfect beauty of this film. Um, no; very character knows either about his tattoo or his respect for the endangered CGI Abruzzese butterflies. I guess even Mr. Ebert couldn't sit through this twice to get the details right.

Therefore, as an American, I want to apologize and explain to all non-Americans here on IMDb that "The American" is far more pretentious, dull, and tiresome than any actual American. That Yogi Bear movie has to be better than this wreck.