Clooney’s American is entirely boring and ordinary outside of his inhuman precision. No wonder Corbijn cites Sergio Leone as a major influence, even directly referencing him inside the film Corbijn’s movie is as starkly stylized, hushed and palled with dread as any of Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns. He spends a lot of time seemingly doing nothing, and we surmise he’s waiting for something to happen. The gun is definitely this man’s tool of choice, and wrapped up in the movie’s long scenes of a scowling George Clooney meticulously crafting a weapon, brow leaden with concentration, is the all-American phallus, penetrating the frontier, toughness and vigilance and solitude one’s only means of survival. Which is how murder works in The American: with the utilitarian grace of someone who lists it on his resume, right alongside “building guns,” which we learn is what Clooney’s character is doing as his final “job,” and which he treats as sacredly as a samurai treats respect, ritual and tradition. Or he’s just really good with guns, and by default good at killing people. He’s like Alain Delon in Le Samourai or Ghost Dog in Ghost Dog, a shadow of a shadow of some deeply inscribed archetype that may or may not be American, but definitely represents that to which America aspires. He’s tattooed as if his skin is his dress uniform, he works out the same way daily, visits the same prostitute, has sex at the same inexorable pace, never smiles-in these patterns he conditions every fiber of his being to act excluded from everything around him. This is super-serious Clooney, Michael Clayton without the swagger. Or, at least, of a successful America: ultra-stylized, disciplined, über-masculine, totally humorless. The American casts George Clooney’s stolid hermit as a symbol of Anton Corbijn’s America. Stars: George Clooney, Johan Leysen, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Irina Björklund, Filippo Timi Payne uses Clooney’s authority and confidence beautifully: Matt spends much of the movie trying to figure out the practical logistics of improving himself as a father and a man, because it seems like his chance to improve as a husband is about to pass.- Jesse Hassenger He’s supported by an eclectic ensemble that includes Shailene Woodley, Robert Forster, Matthew Lillard, Beau Bridges and Judy Greer, but the camera is never far from Clooney’s face, searching for a way through the emotional mess in front of him. This puts Clooney’s performance as Matt King, the trustee of a land-owning Hawaiian family coping with his wife’s impending death, front and center. Stars: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Beau Bridges, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Robert ForsterĪlexander Payne’s dramedies usually have a funnier, more satirical edge his adaptation of the Kaui Hart Hemmings novel is somehow both rougher and less lacerating, because its characters are a bit more forthright in their grief and anger, making fewer fumbling attempts at social niceties. Here are the 20 best George Clooney movies: So let’s take a tour of Clooney’s best and appreciate his 21st-century ability to summon gravitas, and then undermine it for a laugh when necessary. (Clooney himself can’t ever stop talking about what a bad job he did in Batman & Robin, but that movie’s flop probably helped keep at least a handful of superstars out of franchise nightmares for upwards of a decade.)Īccordingly, Clooney’s best movies can probably stand up to just about any contemporary star-and he’s the only one who played the president in the Spy Kids universe. Though he obviously has a weakness for middlebrow old-school respectability and has sometimes been overshadowed by younger co-stars like Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, it’s also arguable that guys like Damon and Pitt have essentially been emulating Clooney’s circa-1998 career reset in their loyalty to major artists and avoidance of superhero tentpoles. He has long-term collaborations with real-deal geniuses (the Coen Brothers Steven Soderbergh) one-off work with an eclectic mix of auteurs (Alexander Payne, Anton Corbijn, Alfonso Cuarón) and occasional dashes of voiceover or cameo whimsy. While his directing career has favored middle-of-the-road throwbacks, occasionally successful ( Good Night, and Good Luck) and often turgid ( The Monuments Men), Clooney’s big-screen acting career-essentially restarted, in the wake of ER, when he starred in From Dusk Till Dawn in 1996-has been a model of combining movie-star charisma with serious-actor ambition. He’s starred in just a couple of movies and directed some forgettable ones put together, this makes it easy to forget just how sterling his overall track record has been. George Clooney has made himself relatively scarce in recent years, especially in front of the camera.
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