"The American"

**Spoiler alert-if you actually decide to see this movie**

 For a while I couldn't decide if it was boring or if it was a stylish thriller that I was supposed to be appreciating on some level. Yep, just boring; an opinion affirmed by those exiting the theater with us and those who left before it was over.
 I think George Clooney has been in every movie Steven Soderbergh has made (99 percent of which I have not liked) and as producer has channeled his mentor's slow-paced, drag every scene out style. Clooney is in just about every shot, but the only emotion we get from him is intense brooding. Two hours of that is just way too much. He gets shot in the end, but they could have done that halfway into the film and I would have appreciated the time they saved us.
 Plot stuff-he's a spy or mercenary of some sort trying to evade assasination by "The Swedes" and is hiding out in a tiny Italian village. He is going to do one last job and then get out of the business and retire to Hoboken with his hooker girlfriend Clara, played by the stunning Violante Placido. Even Placido's frequent nudity is not enough to save this movie.
 It may be billed as an action film, but almost all the action in the movie is literally in the previews. I hope to never see it again and give it $3 out of $11-all $3 for Placido.