First of all, this movie is nothing like the theatrical trailer would have you believe. It is a slow character study not an intense action thriller... which would be just fine if I had been in the mood for a gloomy - if-it-had-been-better - depressing study of a dreary life.
When you boil it down it's a love story; though, in this reviewers humble opinion, not a very compelling love story. It's jumbled, hyperbolic in its understatedness, and did I mention slow?
Oh good lord have mercy it is slow - unnecessarily slow. It's like there wasn't enough content so the director thought, "I'll put in a lot of driving sequences to fill it out". Like adding extra words to reach a minimum word count, this movie is full of filler.
It might have been good as a short story - which I'm sure there are many covering the same subject - but as an hour and thirty-five minute movie it just doesn't cut it.
The acting is good, the story is very familiar, and it... is... slow...
I give The American a 2 out of 10 stars. Dull describes my evening with this film.
