Oh my god what a piece of shit! A thriller? Really? When did that happen.
Look, I know everyone isn’t a gun nut but fuck me man, why all the gun masturbation? If you want to kill someone get any gun and shoot them.
And what’s with all the hooker scenes? She won’t kiss you, she will kiss you…
And it’s SO Goddamn important to show all of the driving scenes. We get it, he gets in the car and goes somewhere. I don’t need to see the whole fucking trip.
The only saving grace about this experience was the woman behind me MST3K’ing this entire movie. A highlight:
She: what is he doing?
He: He’s building a silencer out of car parts.
She: Well why doesn’t he just fucking BUY one! (Yeah, I know - but watch and you’ll get it)
It goes on and on. I paid for two of my friends and I feel I owe them a refund.
Worst. Movie. Ever. Fuck you.
ETA: Who are these people? Good guys? Bad guys? Government guys? Americans? Who knows, who cares? No plot, no sound track. Would it have killed you to hire a lighting guy? Shit!
I saw this tonight and completely agree. I have never seen a movie audience squirm the way they did in this movie. I think they cut and pasted his expression into every scene. Really awful.
I liked it, my wife didn’t. Great cinematography, for starters. Some unknown (to me) actors that did credible jobs. The scenes were evenly paced and the tension was maintained pretty much throughout. It’s not a film for those with short attention spans, nor for those who have to have non-stop action, as it was filmed very much in a European manner. My wife’s objections were that it was a plot that has been done many, many times in the past: bad guy wants out of the biz, hooker with heart of gold, a priest, showdown between protagonist and antagonist. Cliches all.
I haven’t seen it, but now I’m sort of intrigued. It sounds as if it was marketed to the wrong audience – the trailers paint it as some adrenaline-filled Bourne-type spy thriller, so people going into the movie expecting that are bound to be disappointed and cheesed off. From what I’m reading here, it sounds more along the style of, say, The Limits of Control, which was just as polarizing to audiences due to its pacing and idea of slow and deliberate tension.
I guess what I’m saying is, people are being sold a movie ticket that says “GEORGE CLOONEY SPY ACTION BLOCKBUSTER,” getting in the theatre, and being served a cold face-slappy platter of “woops, arthouse character flick that just happens to have George Clooney who just happens to do spy shit” instead? Does that sound accurate?
Sorry, twickster, my bad. I was thinking of putting this in the pit. I forgot to amend the title while posting it here.
That surprises me. A couple of questions:
Were these people good guys or bad guys? If I don’t even have a hint of who the characters are, how am I supposed to care about them.
Did you for a second ‘buy’ all the gun talk? Any off the shelf hunting rifle could have made the shot she needed that gun for.
How did the priest always just show up? And why wouldn’t Clooney’s character be suspicious of that?
What was this hooker’s ‘heart of gold’, we don’t a thing about her? We see her every second that Clooney did. She just ‘knew’ him (just as the priest did). Every one in this movie is psychic.
IMO, this is not an art film. There was nothing arty about it. Clooney’s acting (or direction thereof) was stiff and awful (and I love Clooney!). I actually like movies with long cuts. I don’t need flashy. But this movie was just bad. I suspect the people who say they liked this are doing the emporor’s new clothes bit.
I see it as a dark comedy in which Lisa Whelchel’s mind finally snaps and she thinks God is telling her he wants her to kill Clooney as a sacrifice to him. She decides to make it a homeschool graduation project for her kids and justifies it by the fact he’s probably making people gay (not that she needs justification since God told her to do it). Whelchel is played by Mindy Cohn.
For those not familiar,
1- George Clooney was briefly a regular on Facts of Life during its declining seasons
2- Lisa Whelchel became a whack job delusional homophobic Fundie (cite [one of many] for both the delusional and the homophobic aspects of her Fundie-ism)
I started my own thread on The American last Wednesday, after we stupidly went to see it on opening day.
Considering we had seen Eat, Pray, Love the week before, and then The American the following week - well, we are living proof that suckers are indeed born every day.
Don’t waste your time on either film - most certainly not in the theaters, but don’t even bother when either is on television, free. Those are hours you will never get back.
You would have a far better time watching the canned goods in your pantry.
