61
Metascore
36 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertHere is a gripping film with the focus of a Japanese drama, an impenetrable character to equal Alain Delon's in "Le Samourai," by Jean-Pierre Melville.
- 80New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNew York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierThe American, a movie as coiled as a snake and as still as a sleepy villa, is the rare grownup thriller that knows the link between peace and danger and the tension that comes from both.
- 75Orlando SentinelRoger MooreOrlando SentinelRoger MooreCrisp, compact and cryptic, The American is a standard-issue hit-man thriller tailor made for George Clooney.
- 75Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMiami HeraldRene RodriguezCorbijn makes the familiar strange, focusing on details other filmmakers would gloss over.
- 63Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsThe movie is a paradox. It's ostentatiously restrained. You cannot say Corbijn lacks rigor. You can, however, say that when a talented director's approach too precisely mirrors the tightly calibrated performance strategy of his leading player, a movie risks stalling out completely.
- 60The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottIt is a reasonably skillful exercise in genre and style, a well-made vessel containing nothing in particular, though some of its features - European setting, slow pacing, full-frontal female nudity - are more evocative of the art house than of the multiplex.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttNothing really adds up, and the ending is downright absurd. You would like even the most austere, doctrinaire existential movie to earn its downbeat ending. This one fails utterly to do so.
- 50Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe role requires Clooney to dial down his charm to nearly zero, and frankly, he looks twitchy and uncomfortable without it.
- 50Boston GlobeWesley MorrisBoston GlobeWesley MorrisThe film is overripe with erotic symbols.
- 50Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanCharlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanA slow, grim, atmospheric but virtually plotless look at a blank-faced loner who is obsessed with his work, has no friends except for one woman inexplicably attached to him, and ends up making those around him miserable.