The American

OPENING: 09/02/2020

STUDIO: Focus Features

RUN TIME: 105 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
George Clooney is The American

Opening Statement
One can only wonder how on earth a film like The American secured a wide theatrical release. I saw it at a 10-screen multiplex which traditionally avoids anything remotely “artsy” like the plague, but it’s showing there and at almost every other theatre around. The TV ads are promoting it as an action-packed international thriller; perhaps George Clooney’s Jason Bourne movie. However, the actual film is quiet, slow and meditative, requiring close attention and a good deal of patience. No matter. Whether it’s showing on 2 screens or 2,000, the important thing is that The American is an excellent film well worth seeing.

Facts of the Case
The film’s central character is Jack (George Clooney, Michael Clayton), though sometimes he goes by Edward. He is a professional assassin. His latest assignment took something of a sour turn, and now he’s laying low in the Italian countryside. While he’s there, his employer (Johan Leysen, Brotherhood of the Wolf) provides him with a relatively simple assignment. He is to build a rifle according to specifications provided by a contact (Thekla Reuten, In Bruges), deliver the rifle within a certain amount of time and then collect his pay. While working on this assignment, Jack spends his evenings with a prostitute named Clara (Violante Placido, Sleepless). Jack knows that he can’t afford the luxury of having friends or lovers in his business, but being with Clara makes him contemplate whether he should be in the business at all.

The Evidence
The basic plot structure of The American is very simple, unfolding at its own languid pace one small piece at a time. The film is noteworthy not for the story that it tells but for the way in which it tells it, as writer Rowan Joffe and director Anton Corbijn take reinvigorate old clichés by stripping them to their core and carefully examining them. Yes, we have seen The Hit Man Starting to Lose His Edge before, along with the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, but rarely have such characters felt so potently well-defined.

I mentioned that the film isn’t much like the Bourne movies. So what is it like? The first thing that came to mind was Jim Jarmusch’s similarly precise hit man movie, The Limits of Control. Corbijn echoes that film in his attention to detail, the rhythms of his editing, the carefully composed shots, the cautious pace, the lingering images of the European countryside, the spare dialogue and the intensely controlled performances. There are two significant differences. One is that both films are billed as thrillers, but only Corbijn’s is genuinely thrilling. The other is that Jarmusch’s film ultimately felt like a clinical experiment, while Corbijn’s film has truthful, intense emotions running beneath the muted surface. That puts it about on par with one of Jarmusch’s stronger movies, the beautifully restrained Broken Flowers.

One could also compare the movie to other boldly uncompromising films on Clooney’s resume like Solaris and The Good German, as it will undoubtedly divide critics and audiences as sharply as those ambitious (though admittedly flawed) projects did. Or perhaps a more apt comparison is Up in the Air, Jason Reitman’s superb drama about a businessman who discovered a yearning for human connection. Jack is as taciturn and enigmatic as Up in the Air’s Ryan Bingham was chatty and open, but the slow-burning desire to find something more profound than a profession grips both men. The most direct influence is specifically mentioned in the film: Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, another film which realized that tremendous suspense and drama could be found in prolonged close-ups of the human face.

So yes, it’s obvious that the film owes a debt to many other fine movies, but then most great films do. Corbijn takes things we have seen before and delivers them in a manner that I found intensely powerful; there are few movies you will see this year which are more blatantly cinematic. I leave most films thinking about little things I might have changed or done differently; even very good movies have moments like that. The American is a film made with such clarity, confidence and purpose that I can’t think of a single thing I would alter in any significant way. There are so many moments in this film that I could not help but fall in love with immediately; they communicate so much in a manner both very subtle and unavoidably direct.

This is not an actor’s movie in the traditional sense, but the tone of the film is so fragile that it requires a cautious balancing act on the part of everyone involved. Clooney is the subject of much scrutiny, as the film spends a good deal of time simply examining his face (though the film is also fond of examining him from a distance in long, sweeping shots which accentuate his loneliness and isolation). It’s the sort of performance where the smallest gesture can reveal plenty, and it becomes particularly compelling when he is engaged in conversation (verbal or otherwise) with other human beings. There are a couple of superb scenes involving Jack and an aging priest (Paolo Bonacelli, M:i III), and the negotiations between Jack and his contact are fascinating in the way they examine the level of trust on both sides. However, my single favorite moment is one I can’t even describe for you; a quick gesture which is emotionally shattering in context.

Closing Statement
Obviously, this isn’t a movie for everyone. I can easily see how one might come away declaring the movie to be a typical story delivered at a slower-than-usual pace. But if you’re willing to accept the film on its own terms, to look beneath the surface and to really consider the words and (especially) the actions of the characters, you’ll find an immensely rewarding experience. The American is one of my favorite motion pictures of the year.

The Verdict
10/10

Attention loyal readers: did you miss our review of Up In The Air from our Toronto International Film Festival coverage in September? If so, you’ve come to the right place then. The latest film from Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking) this one has already begun racking up the accolades and awards — some even place it (controversially one might argue!) as the Best Film of the Year.

Head on over and read our review to decide for yourself!

Attention loyal readers: did you miss our review of The Men Who Stare At Goats from our Toronto International Film Festival coverage in September? No problem, we understand. It was a busy month, after all. Kids going back to school, the leaves changing colors. It happens!

This zany comedy is now in theaters, so be sure and familiarize yourself with our review before you throw down the box office dollars!

Up in the Air

OPENING: 11/13/2009

STUDIO: Paramount

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
The story of a man ready to make a connection.

Opening Statement
The third film by filmmaker Jason Reitman (son of Ivan, Juno, Thank You For Smoking) Up in the Air establishes itself quickly as his best film to-date; very impressive, considering how strong his oeuvre is. The man has a knack for turning the simple into the profound, for releasing films timed so expertly with the mental climate of audiences. Up in the Air is a near-perfect balance of lighthearted comedy and bittersweet introspection, wrapped up into social and economical criticism, and received standing ovations during its screening at TIFF. This one is going to turn heads in November.

Facts of the Case
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a “career transition consultant” – he fires people for a living. He lives his whole life out of his suitcase. He travels almost every day of the year. He spends more time in first class on airplanes than in his real apartment which he despises. For him, his home is on the road, in the endless suites of hotel rooms, in concierge lines being catered to. His company gets hired to go on-site and lay off dozens of employees at one time, listening to their moans, their threats, their tears with faux-sympathy and support. In an economic climate sliding further into the tubes, business is booming for Ryan.

He even meets like-minded travelers on the road, like the beautiful Alex (Vera Farmiga), who lives a life as perpetually on-the-move as Ryan. They try and coordinate their schedules to meet up whenever their paths cross for a late-night rendezvous, and Ryan enjoys the casualness of it all, of his entire life. Ryan is happy. All his emotional baggage has been stowed safely away. For him, total mastery of the business class lifestyle is his reason for living—and one day, he’ll even reap the exclusive rewards of logging over ten million miles as a frequent flyer, his scorecard to success.

But when his corporation hires a young hotshot graduate named Natalie (Anna Kendrick) who threatens to “revolutionize” the business by laying off employees via webcam, Ryan takes her on as an unwilling protégé to show her exactly how the job really works—the endless traveling, the tears of dejected and devastated workers losing their entire place in the world. By showing her exactly how isolated and mobile his life needs to be to succeed at his job, and by juggling increasingly romantic rendezvous with Alex, he veers dangerously close to developing real relationships for the first time. Suddenly, the ties that bind everyone else that seemed so onerous—mortgages, families, spouses, children—now act as spotlights, illuminating exactly how isolated he really is.

The Evidence
A marvelously enjoyable film, Up in the Air is a perfect example of how profound and powerful a filmmaker can be when he simply stops and listens to his audience. Here is a film that captures so perfectly so many anxieties, worries, delights and joys in modern America—a struggling economic climate, the constant anxiety of losing jobs and livelihoods, loneliness and alienation, the new emphasis to put career first and family second—all of it wrapped so effortlessly and enjoyably.

In Ryan, we find a man who struggles with his lot in life, not as a “mid-life crisis” so much as a culture crisis. Imagine his representation as an entire generation of American salarymen, eschewing family life and connections, binding ties and baggage in favor of a highly mobile and materialistic lifestyle. For Ryan (and for so many of us today) career comes first, at the exclusion of every other element traditionally embraced by our culture. Traditionally, one worked hard for their house, their family, their children, but for millions like Ryan, today, the work itself is the reward. All the other bits just weigh you down. Consider that for many of us up-and-coming children of Generation X, we are at an age still struggling with financial obligations, debts, immaturity and finding a career path that can support our dreams and aspirations. Flash back thirty years, and by our age, our parents had it all: a house, a career, a family and children, with not a care in the world. It must have been nice.

Up in the Air gets it, absolutely nails this anxiety on the head. If we live a life entirely devoted to the materialistic, to the mobile and modern lifestyle, eschewing the traditional values—what do we have at the end of the day? Ryan is happy as a clam with his life, and his ethos acts as nails on a chalkboard to everyone around him. Estranged from his own family, they have no understanding or appreciation of why he puts distance between them. His young protégé looks at him as if he is from another plant when he sings the virtues of total freedom of bonds. And it works for him, perfectly, brilliantly—right up until the point where it stops working. We watch it happen in a sequence of facial expressions on George Clooney, like bricks slowly tumbling out of a decrepit wall causing the entire thing to collapse. It is a heartbreaking moment.

A brilliant mix of comedy and drama, of loneliness and loss, heart and humility, Up in the Air feels so right, so profound, despite not really saying much of anything. Call it a populist film in subject and delivery; the film manages to speak at length on a variety of critical emotional, social and cultural issues, without really creating any debate on the issue. This is just a simple slice of one man’s life, and whatever we infer or take away from it is ours to decide. There is little challenge here. It is a gentle and kind film with its audiences, never too probing or solemn in its observations or critiques, but this casual approach works extremely well, in part because we can believe it. Ryan lives a lifestyle that most audience members would never choose to live, but in watching his own fiery pride flicker and burn out, his own ethos come heavily into question, we cherish and value our own relationships by proxy. His heartbreaks manifest as our own introspect.

Most films struggle trying to harmonize disparate elements, mixing and matching genres, but Jason Reitman appears to have quite the knack for it. As a writer, producer and director, he seemingly has an uncanny talent to attach to projects that span genres with ease. Up in the Air is equal parts social commentary, spiritual philosophy, romantic comedy and family drama. Like a Benetton commercial, all elements are in harmony. The jokes all land perfectly and are uproariously funny, the family elements are warm and approachable, the introspection never comes close to being preachy or manipulative, and the romance is tender and sincere. Adding to this, Reitman reveals himself as having some serious talent behind the camera. This is a beautifully shot film, full of quirky close-ups and exquisitely framed compositions sure to delight those who appreciate the finer technical elements of cinema.

Clooney delivers a wonderful performance as a man slowly coming into (or out of) his shell. The cool and calculated Ryan we meet at the beginning of the film peels away to reveal a man not unlike all of us—unsure of where his place in the world is, how he will pay the bills, lonely for affection but too proud to admit it. It is a marvelously nuanced performance by the veteran actor, and will no doubt earn him great praise. An unusually reserved Jason Bateman plays his boss, a corporate raider type satisfied with his lot and unsympathetic to his report’s plight. Vera Farmiga lights up the screen as the chromosomal counterpart to Clooney, a female Ryan with no hesitation or reservations. Watching the two fall into love is as satisfying of an experience as even the finest romances can offer. The hapless protégé, played by Anna Kendrick is plucky and spunky, full of big ideas and fresh out of school (as we all were once). By the end, she learns some unpleasantly hard lessons about how the world really works (as we all did). Her performance is quite good; funny and feisty and by the end, just a bit deflated, all very realistic. Small cameo appearances by Zach Galifianakis and the eponymous J.K. Simmons round out the cast nicely.

Closing Statement
Up in the Air captures almost every element about going to the movies that we love, balancing them equally and effortlessly into a single, simple film. Lighthearted but profound, heartwarming while distant, humorous and heartbreaking, you get the idea. The final product is a masterful contradiction, bittersweet and lovely and wholly enjoyable—absolutely one of the best movies of the year.

The Verdict
9/10

The Men Who Stare At Goats

OPENING: 11/06/2009

STUDIO: Overture Films

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
More of this is true than you would believe.

Opening Statement
A surrealist and psychotropic exploration into the more unconventional nooks and crannies of American defense budget allocation, The Men Who Stare at Goats is a charming film without a purpose. Adapted from a nonfiction account into the more eccentric areas of military defense spending, hilarious performances from its top-tier assure an easy victory for audiences.

Facts of the Case
Reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is in a funk. A stagnating career, a fiancé who leaves him for his editor, his life lacks purpose. To attempt to find deeper meaning (and impress his ex) he volunteers in 2003 to cover the Iraqi war, but ends up on the sidelines in Kuwait. While waiting for something, anything to happen, he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a surreptitious businessman who quickly reveals himself to be a complicated individual. Cassady was a member of the First Earth Battalion, a government funded project during the Cold War attempting to develop an army of “Jedi warriors” who could pacify enemies non-violently, walk through walls, perform remote viewings and combat the Ruskies with the power of thought.

Cassady tells the story of the program founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) and how his experiences in Vietnam led him to explore an alternate way to fight a war—through compassion and respect for mankind. Taking advantage of a demoralized and cash-laden Cold War military budget, the First Earth Battalion was formed. Applying New Age philosophy to combat training often lead to dubious results, but Cassady was the star pupil.

Wilton writes his new associate off as a madman, but lacking any other purpose, agrees to follow Cassady into Iraq. The now-retired mind warrior, it seems, has been “re-activated” for a new mission… except that he doesn’t really know what it is yet.

Did I mention this movie is based on true events? Because it is.

The Evidence
Adapted from the nonfiction journalistic exploration of Jon Ronson (a delightful book now surging back in popularity and print via “now a major motion picture” editions) The Men Who Stare at Goats is in many ways an ambitious cinematic project. The work on which it is based—a series of essays and interviews with eccentric cooks and cult leaders—does not lend easily to a cinematic adaptation. When the project was announced, I was skeptical as to how a film version could be executed. The solution is a deforesting of the source material, axing away most of Ronson’s narrative and interviews and replacing it with a original story encircling the same fundamental premise: the United States government funding of research and training into creating “psychic warriors” that could battle the Russians (who rumor had were already researching their own paranormal troops). If 10% of the original source material in the book remains, it would be generous.

Still, what remains is good, good stuff. A healthy combination of ass-kicking in Vietnam combined with excessive military budget spending in the Cold War gave the government license to fund practically any oddball experiment it wanted, provided it had national defense at its core, and the idea that American soldiers could incapacitate enemy forces with the power of their mind didn’t seem too crazy. After all, Star Wars was a hit, so maybe Jedi powers were worth exploring. When the notion of the First Earth Battalion was suggested, it was never implemented—at least not officially—but many of the ideas resonated throughout various levels of the intelligence community. The US tried its hand at remote viewing, teleportation, retrocognition, psychokinesis, and of course, staring at goats, with varying degrees of success. The Men Who Stare at Goats captures all this in glorious, surreal detail by way of its hapless protagonist, Bob Wilton, a reporter (like Ronson) who inadvertently stumbled upon a story nobody else was talking about. He meets Lyn Cassady, an ex-First Earth Battalion Jedi Warrior (who now owns a dance studio) in Kuwait, and the whole story unfolds.

From this point on, the story is in artistic license mode, sending Wilton and Cassady into Iraq on a series of bumbling misadventures interjected with flashbacks covering various key historic events from the novel. The film relies heavily on narration and voiceover work, a negative element to most feature films, but in The Men Who Stare at Goats, there is little choice. The film would make no sense without the backdrop of the absurdities of the stories contained in Ronson’s book, so the narrative is essentially cut into two strips—one following Wilton and Cassady in Iraq, the other following the early proponents of the First Earth Battalion (an increasingly typecast Jeff Bridges) and a young Cassady.

A lot of detail gets left on the editing room floor, but the film moves easily and carefree; a string of zany comedic dialogue, physical comedy and svelte camera framing swings the suffering Wilton between complete disbelief and hope in putting faith in “the mission”. In terms of humor, The Men Who Stare at Goats will be a crowd-pleasing film, full of lighthearted sight gags and excessively zany performances by its cast. Directed by Grant Heslov, actor and longtime Clooney collaborator, the film has style and aplomb, and rests on the performances of its all-star cast do the comedic heavy lifting. Ewan McGregor’s American accent is a bit weak, but he makes a great straight man, and the constant references to him having “Jedi potential” are deliciously ironic. Clooney gives the same performance as in Syriana, if he was a raving LSD-tripping lunatic with psychic powers, and gets more laughs than anyone else. Jeff Bridges plays The Dude from The Big Lebowski in a military uniform, a role in which he seems to find himself in more and more these days, and Kevin Spacey tries (but fails) to be the movie’s chief villain. The problem of course is that there really is no villain, no catharsis, and no real plot to speak of. This is just a sequence of misadventures both hilarious and unbelievable, and the lack of a cohesive plot ultimately hinders the film from greatness.

The two storylines, past and present day eventually correlate in the third act, and The Men Who Stare at Goats derails here. In the eleventh hour, it occurs to the screenplay author that a finale is required full of spectacle and pathos, but it comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really many any sense. This is the consequence to adapting a subject that belies convention. After all, it is hard to write a sensible screenplay about such an inherently nonsensical subject matter. The crux of the film rests on the lamentation that the First Earth Battalion ideas failed to find traction, that the inherent goodness of the project—however drug-addled and hippie-oriented its origins may have been—failed to find resonance. There were good intentions at work, and the ending tries to spin this all back into focus for audiences, illustrating the absurdities of the modern army by way of grizzled and burned-out psychic Jedi warriors running amuck in an army base. The ending is weak, and here is where we see the nonfiction wheat separate from the cinematic chaff, but the journey is sufficiently entertaining that most audience members won’t mind one bit. All the good bits are loaded into the first two acts anyway. The film has heart and passion for its subject, and it’s hard not to be enthused.

Closing Statement
Lighthearted and zany, The Men Who Stare at Goats is an easy victory, provided you don’t expect much from the plot. A star-studded cast of unhinged performances and a subject matter so crazy it has to be true, make this one an easy recommend.

The Verdict
8/10

Burn After Reading

OPENING DATE: 09/12/2008

STUDIO: Focus Features

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
Intelligence is relative.

Opening Statement
Since the 1970s, the paranoid political thriller has been a popular genre. There have been quite a few good movies to come from this genre, such as The Day of the Jackal, Three Days of the Condor, and Syriana. In these movies, everything is a conspiracy, and nothing is a coincidence. Now, the infamous Coen Brothers have made a film using similar elements in which nothing is a conspiracy, and everything is a coincidence. It may make for slightly less thrilling cinema, but it is a view of the world that I happen to find a little more convincing. It’s also a heck of a lot funnier.


Ever since they began with Blood Simple, Joel and Ethan Coen have always included a man behind a desk in each of their films. These men have their own unique personalities, but there is a common thread. The more you listen to these men talk, the more you realize that they have gone completely off the deep end. Think of the studio boss in Barton Fink, or The Big Lebowski in The Big Lebowski, or Jerry Lundegard in Fargo. Burn After Reading is a film that takes place within a world where there are many such men: Washington, D.C.


Facts of the Case
The film opens with one of these men (David Rasche), a CIA official who is dealing with the unpleasant task of firing one of his operatives. The operative is Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), a wanna-be intellectual with a hot temper and a considerable drinking problem. Cox responds very badly to the news of his dismissal, and determines to deal with his feelings by writing a memoir (or as he oh-so-carefully puts it, “mem-wah”). Unfortunately, his mem-wah accidentally gets lost, and it is somehow found by a couple of employees at a local gym.

One of the employees is Linda (Frances McDormand), a very friendly woman with a lot of insecurity issues. She is determined to get several cosmetic surgeries in order to make herself look better, and is deeply saddened when she learns that her “Mickey Mouse insurance company” won’t pay for such operations. The other employee is Chad (Brad Pitt), a pop-music loving, bubble-gum chewing fellow who behaves exactly like you would expect someone named Chad to behave. Chad is thrilled to find the disc, and believes that he and Linda can gain some sort of reward by blackmailing Cox. Chad’s plans are barely worthy of being actually called “plans,” they mostly consist of squinting a lot and repeating Osborne’s name in a Clint Eastwood rasp. Osborne is married to a particularly icy woman (Tilda Swinton) who happens to be having an affair with a married man named Harry (George Clooney). Harry winds up getting involved with Linda, and… well, I’ll let the film itself unfold the complications from there.


The Evidence
This is a superbly crafted movie, and it is also a funny movie. The odd thing is that it is crafted like a thriller and acted like a comedy. The technical credits are far sharper than you might expect for a movie with as much silliness as this one. Emmanuel Lubeski’s cinematography is superb, as is the slightly satirical Carter Burwell score that could easily slip into a film like Syriana without anyone really noticing. The fact that such stars as Clooney (Syriana), Malkovich (In the Line of Fire), Pitt (Spy Game), and Swinton (Michael Clayton) are involved also adds to the feeling that we should be taking this a lot more seriously than it actually deserves to be taken.

It takes a while to get used to the film’s unusual tone, but once you do, I suspect you’ll have a great deal of fun. The Coens are nearly unparalleled when it comes to casting, and they select just the right actor for each role once again here. My favorite performance comes from Malkovich, who would probably come across as a very well-mannered and intelligent man if only people weren’t constantly doing things that disrupted his good manners and sense of intelligence. I was also fond of the pair of exchanges between David Rasche and J.K. Simmons, which are so perfectly timed that they had me doubling over. Clooney gets to deliver several absurdly funny moments, and McDormand demonstrates that she can be immensely likable even when she is playing a complete bubblehead. Speaking of bubbleheads, Brad Pitt… well… done, I think. Richard Jenkins also has a nice turn as the most sympathetic character in the film, a gym manager who spends his days hopelessly pining after the clueless Linda.


Closing Statement
If you’re one of the folks who became a Coen convert only after seeing No Country for Old Men, you may not particularly care for what they’re up to here. If you’re a fan of their films like The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and… oh, Barton Fink, I think… then this may very well be up your alley. Nonetheless, this film doesn’t quite fit as neatly into the Coen filmography as you might think. It’s not quite as obviously silly as their comedies, and yet it’s also sillier than all of them. It’s not as serious as their dramas, yet there are deep truths here buried beneath (or perhaps thrown above) the fray. Really, the whole thing is just one big joke, with the punchline being delivered beautifully in the final scene. Would you pay eight dollars to hear a good joke that takes 96 minutes to tell? Personally, I’m looking forward to hearing it again.


The Verdict
9/10