The American

2 1/2 out of 5 Stars



George Clooney plays an assassin who grows tired of his life and heads to a small town in Italy to do one last job before getting out. In the mean time he falls for a prostitute and is hunted down but he doesn't know by who.

There are some great things done with The American. The character is interesting. His proficiency with weapons is intriguing to witness on screen and quite captivating. The film uses very little music and even then not until over halfway into the film. Before that any music is in the background. It's very fitting for the film. It's a character study on an assassin and a very interesting one at that. The pieces fit together quite well. Surprisingly well considering that the entire film is based around the character and therefore the story falls a bit to the wayside. It's a film made for the critics, not for the general populous.

So there are also a lot of problems with this film. It doesn't move very fast therefore it starts to feel very long after a while. Even though the character is interesting his reasons and decisions must be completely interpreted because it's not all plain and obvious. If there hadn't been a plot summary I'm pretty sure I would have been a bit confused as to what the film was about. The plot is thin with lots of unanswered questions about why he is being hunted. It's an art house film and even though I like many artistic films this was just much too slow. There are unfortunately more boring moments than anything despite how interesting the character is.

Up In the Air

4 1/2 out of 5 Stars




George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a company man who travels the country to fire people from their jobs in this adult oriented comedy directed by Jason Reitman. Ryan has spent the majority of his adult life away from family traveling from place to place. This is his life and he enjoys it. Than a young woman, Natalie Keener(Anna Kendrick) is hired at his company and incorporates the idea of setting up electronic means to do the companies job. Of course Ryan is against this change and soon we are following him on his journey of showing the Natalie the ropes of the job as he continues on the lonely structure of his life.

Up In the Air is a film that succeeds on so many levels. It encompasses what film is and has been since the beginning in many aspects. It brings story and character to the screen. We are brought into the world of someone we would normally hate and we feel where he is coming from. George Clooney grabs our hearts as the company man who has no real path in life. He is alone but doesn't see it. On his journey he meets a woman who he begins to have an intimate fling with, what he calls a casual relationship. Soon enough Natalie Keener enters his life on the road and a story of love, life, and loneliness encompasses their conversations. As his sister is about to get married, and his company undergo major changes that could leave him at home, Ryan begins to question his life ethics.

The story and characters of the film are surrounded by a soundtrack that fits the mood of the film. Although the cast is big, the film has the film of a smaller independent film. It brings home one of the greatest human themes of all; living and dying alone. As Ryan tells his sister's fiance, "Wasn't it lonely in that honeymoon suite all alone?" Nobody truly wants to be alone.

The ending may be predictable but the characters are so genuine that it doesn't matter. What matters is what is happening with those characters and what has been brought forth on the screen. It is a story we can all relate to. For the most part we can all understand unemployment, many of us being fired, and we can all understand feeling alone. This is a story about feeling alone in a crowd, even when we think we're not. The characters are set up perfectly in this story.

This is for certain one of the best heartfelt films I have seen in the past year.