Given that Focus Features held Anton Corbijn's moody thriller The American back from critics until two days before its opening, and that said opening falls into the back hole of the Labor Day weekend, the natural assumption is that it's a dog. That's wrong. Corbijn's movie may not be what Focus was banking on, and perhaps after The Limits of Control they're wary of arty movies about taciturn killers, but The American is a respectable and sometimes moving piece of work, anchored by one of George Clooney's most soulful performances. More in that vein in my Salon review, where I argue that the movie's schematic, almost off-the-shelf plot is one of the things that makes it most enthralling.
