The American

Starring George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Irina Björklund 15A cert, gen release, 103 min

George Clooney gets all enigmatic in a slighly static thriller that's just a little too beautiful for its own good, writes DONALD CLARKE

IS ANTON Corbijn's new film something a bit different? Well, yes. After a summer of thrillers that tended towards the wildly cartoonish – remember the silly Knight and Dayand the sillier Salt? – The Americanoffers an oasis of quiet enigmas. The action scenes are few and far between. The plot is as thin as it is gnomic. The dialogue is stubbornly functional. So, you certainly couldn't confuse it with your average studio shoot-em-up.

That acknowledged, there is a lot here we've seen before. Anyone acquainted with hermetic Jean- Pierre Melville films such as Le Samouraiwill nod sagely at George Clooney's sombre inactivity. If you've sat through Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passengeryou will feel unfazed by – or, at least, grumpily tolerant of – the new picture's unwillingness to explain itself. Heck, at times, The Americanalmost plays like a significantly less deadened remake of Jim Jarmusch's recent Limits of Control. Rarely has something so obtuse seemed so familiar.

Clooney plays an assassin named Jack. The film begins with him enjoying a romantic tryst with a beautiful lady in some picturesque part of Sweden. When a villain turns up behind a tree, Jack whips out a gun and shoots both him and the unfortunate woman. Is she a traitor or just a witness? This is just one of many mysteries that are never quite explained.

After making contact with his mysterious controller, the hero progresses to a beautiful village in the mountains east of Rome. He befriends a local priest, makes the acquaintance of a well-groomed prostitute and begins manufacturing weapons for an equally glamorous female assassin. Who on earth could this slinky woman’s target be?

Anton Corbijn, whose first film, Control, was a rather brilliant study of Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, began life as the creator of icy, austere photographs for The Faceand NME. Indeed, the title of that earlier picture offers unintended pointers to the director's style and attitude. Do not come expecting Anton to wave his camera about in the style of Paul Greengrass. Often employing long takes, making promiscuous use of the attractive scenery, Corbijn offers images attractive (and static) enough to grace album covers by such NME favourites as A Certain Ratio or Durutti Column.

Corbijn is assisted no end in his endeavours by an actor who has always been good at keeping quiet and allowing his middle-aged gorgeousness to do the work. You could argue that there are two entirely distinct Clooneys: the mad, shouty bloke in O Brother, Where Art Thou?and the calm paediatrician who cocks his head to one side when explaining that little Timmy won't see another Christmas. Jack could be Dr Ross's meaner, quietly psychotic twin.

So, The Americandoes a decent job of maintaining an atmosphere of beautifully sedate tension. There are, however, troubling aspects to the enterprise. One assumes that, with its conspicuous seriousness, the film believes itself to be plumbing psychological depths rarely investigated by, say, your average James Bond film. Fair enough. Such an effort is worthwhile.

Unfortunately, its universe is every bit as preposterously glamorous as the planet inhabited by 007. Indeed, the opening scene in the snowbound cabin, rather than calling to mind Antonioni or Jarmusch, triggers memories of the pre-title sequence in The Spy Who Loved Me. Everybody is a little too stunning. The second-unit footage appears ripped from a particularly sumptuous travelogue.

The ultimate effect of all this suave imagery is to undermine the picture's unmistakably high opinion of itself. The Americanis an attractive piece of work, but it looks a little too like a Milk Tray advertisement for comfort.