The American review (The List, Issue 671)

Photographer-turned film director Anton Corbijn follows his haunting debut, the Ian Curtis biopic Control, with a film that moves him onto a bigger cinematic stage (thanks to its leading man George Clooney) while simultaneously allowing him to delve into more personal thematic territory. The American confirms Corbijn as a confident and uniquely gifted filmmaker, but be warned, it is an intentionally slow-moving film, featuring Clooney’s most defiantly subdued performance to date.

The story, adapted from Martin Booth’s novel A Very Private Gentleman, involves Jack (Clooney), an ageing gunsmith forced to go into hiding when an attempt is made on his life. He holes up in Castelvecchio, a beautiful historic Italian village, and there develops tentative connections with a priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and a prostitute (Violante Placido), both of whom provoke him to consider the value of his life up to this point. Meanwhile, Jack becomes increasingly aware that his pursuers are closing in and time is running out.


The scenario will be familiar to anyone who’s ever watched a western, but the simplicity is intentional; Corbijn is interested in the ways in which simple surfaces, including the beautiful surfaces of this film, relate to deeper realities. He continually draws attention to Jack’s physical routines – from his constant gum-chewing to the literal routine of having sex – to question whether the routine is an end in itself, or if it must find meaning at a deeper level; a human connection that goes beyond physicality or a spiritual one that allows physical routines to come to rest.

The American is released on 26th November. This review first published in The List magazine.

The Bounty Hunter (futuremovies.co.uk)

Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler have an interesting track record between them. They’ve both excelled in their respective fields – she as a brilliant TV comedy actress, he as a powerfully manly leading man – and swiftly descended to churning out awful romantic comedies. Neither has been in a great movie for a good few years; is The Bounty Hunter the one to break that downward trend? You probably won’t be surprised to read that no, it most certainly is not.

The story begins with Jennifer Aniston’s ace reporter Nicole getting a whiff of a possible story from a reported suicide case. In her haste to follow up a lead she skips a bail hearing for a petty automobile incident and ends up, unbeknownst to her, on the wrong side of the law. As chance would have it, Nicole’s ex-husband Milo (Gerard Butler), drunken former cop and bounty hunter for hire, is assigned to apprehend her. Milo jumps at the chance to escape his substantial gambling debts and simultaneously get one up on Nicole, but his simple plan for an easy payday is scuppered as soon as he finds her.

Nicole has no intention of going to prison, and soon convinces Milo that they could make more money by going gambling together, but neither of them have yet realised the more pressing issue, that Nicole’s investigations have made her the target of several shady criminals. If this wasn’t bad enough, Milo’s creditors are equally intent on doing him some damage for non-payment. Is it possible that in the middle of all this craziness the bitterly feuding ex-couple could find themselves back in the arms of love once more? Well, you already know the answer to that one.

This is premium-grade convoluted Hollywood rubbish, but it had the potential, in the right hands - I’m thinking Soderbergh or Spielberg - to make for a great movie caper. Unfortunately the right hands weren’t available, and Hitch director Andy Tennant makes an absolute pig’s ear of the whole thing. This type of multi-stranded narrative requires deft pacing and editing to ensure it is balanced and running smoothly, but here every scene feels as if it’s been thrown on to the screen with no attempt at all to integrate it into a coherent story.

Aniston’s comic talents are thoroughly wasted in Nicole, a character without one notable feature and zero lines of memorable dialogue. The ‘jokes’ that centre on her character mostly focus on the fact that she has breasts (shocker!), and there is one stupidly misjudged moment when a rather average looking woman turns her nose up at the suggestion that Aniston’s character used to be a model. Butler fares marginally better, getting a few funny lines and releasing an endearingly gutteral growlish chuckle every now and then. They don’t fit together onscreen though, and never convince as a couple who have been married. When they finally kiss the moment has all the fizz of three-week old Coke.

The overwhelming impression is that this must be a severely compromised and recut version of writer Sarah Thorp’s original script (at least I hope so, for her sake). Support characters pop up and then disappear unannounced, plot threads are left hanging and the main characters behave schizophrenically, their motivations and affections shifting inexplicably from one scene to the next. The police corruption plot-strand is so badly chopped up that at the end we get a hilarious Scooby Doo-style exposition scene shoehorned in to tie things up. It’s as if Tennant was in the editing room and suddenly noticed that even attentive viewers would be a little puzzled as to how events were resolved.

If you want to see this kind of story done with all the tension, humour and sizzling-hot chemistry it deserves, watch Out of Sight featuring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez at their best. If you’re happy to settle for whatever half-hearted guff Hollywood decides to push your way, go and see The Bounty Hunter.

4/10

On general release now. This review first published on futuremovies.co.uk.

Up in the Air

Jason Reitman's third film, and first since his breakout hit Juno, is an enjoyable, quality production in classical Hollywood style, with George Clooney perfectly cast and complemented by terrific support performances from Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga. Clooney is Ryan Bingham, a man who makes his living by firing employees for clients across America, and spends most of his time flying from state to state, ensuring that he never has to maintain meaningful relationships with family or friends. He exists alone and likes it that way. The fact that we don’t instantly hate him is due to Clooney’s charmingly self-aware performance and director Jason Juno Reitman’s skill in getting the tone of the film just right. It’s light and easygoing, but there’s depth and reality to each of the characters, right down to a heartbreaking single-scene appearance from JK Simmons, which takes us right into his character’s life in a few brief moments.

Kendrick plays a new employee shaking things up in Bingham’s industry, while Farmiga, clicking with Clooney in all the right ways, is Bingham’s equal and opposite. The way Reitman brings these three characters together is skilful and supremely entertaining. As with Juno, the director demonstrates his ability to not only understand the touchstones of contemporary life in the Western world, but to get beneath these characters’ surfaces – particularly Clooney and Kendrick – in ways that are believable and insightful. The film is also very funny, and while the final third lacks the grace and ease of the first 70 minutes, Up in the Air is a wonderful example of grown-up mainstream cinema.

8/10

Burn After Reading

Screen Fever Score: 7/10

The Coen Brothers’ new movie is an almost perverse about-face in the wake of their Oscar-winning, weighty adaptation of No Country for Old Men, released just nine months ago in the UK. Where No Country was enigmatic and considered, foregrounding subtlety over show, Burn After Reading is broad and crude, placing its big-name cast front and centre. This is, I think, a good thing. While it is tempting to wish for more of the same after feasting on the greatness of No Country, it’s reassuring to know that the Coens are the same contrarians they’ve always been, and although Burn After Reading is unlikely to make anyone’s Top 5 Coens’ list, it is not without its pleasures.

The story is a lolloping thing, but chiefly centres around CIA agent Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who as the film begins is receiving the unwelcome news of his effective sacking. To add to his woes, his wife is an ice queen (Tilda Swinton, naturally) who is planning to divorce him as soon as possible and is also carrying on an affair with George Clooney’s womanising Treasury agent Harry Pfarrer. Things will soon get worse for Cox, as Chad and Linda, two hapless employees of Hardbodies Gym (played by Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) find a CD of his tell-all CIA memoirs, leading to possibly the worst blackmail attempt in the history of spy movies. Yes, this is the Coens’ take on cool espionage movies, except in this case everyone involved is at least two sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic.

There is a distinct sense in Burn After Reading that the Coens are wilfully pushing their own well-worn characteristics as near to breaking point as they can, particularly with their returning cast members. Clooney plays less a character and more a collection of tics and quirks, obsessing about food, floors and “getting a run in” after sex, while McDormand brings the bug-eyed naivety of Fargo’s Marge Gunderson, but the writing here has none of the human warmth that made that character so effective. The newcomers to the Coen family fare better: Malkovich is excellent in what seems like his first proper role in years, his outraged intensity perfectly fitting the bill. Pitt is also very good, revelling in Chad’s dumbness, but also more subtly pulling off the none-too-easy task of provoking us to warm to an essentially one-dimensional character.

As with all of the Coen Brothers’ films, there are suggestions of meaning beyond the film’s surface, particularly in the maudlin and pensive atmosphere created by Carter Burwell’s score. Unlike their best comedies though – I’m thinking of The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou? – the disparate elements of Burn After Reading don’t add up to a hugely satisfying experience. That said, the film’s ending is perfect: as plot turns become progressively more ludicrous one begins to wonder if there is any point to the story, but a masterful final scene featuring a movie-stealing J.K. Simmons answers that question and ties things up beautifully.

Info:
Directors: Joel & Ethan Coen
UK release date: 17 October

You can also read this review on futuremovies.co.uk