Explain something to me. Is George Clooney a star or not? Is he a media darling, a celebrity, subject of many a female fantasies, and an impossibly good looking 49-year old or not? Is he a mainstream actor or not? Now what is he doing in a quiet, stark movie, doing a delicately nuanced character study of a taciturn assassin, dangerous and endangered (like the butterflies he likes to study)? The American is a take-no-prisoners art house movie. It is minimalist. It is deliberate. It has very little dialog. It has even lesser action. It is visually stunning. Even the plot of the movie is minimalist. Here’s an American assassin called Jack. Or perhaps he is Edward. He works for Pavel. We do not know what he is. It is not important. Only Jack (or Edward) takes orders from him without questions. Jack is forced to kill three people, including a girl (perhaps a prostitute?) in Sweden. Now his boss has asked him to lay low in a remote Italian village. He is supposed to build a custom ri...