The American (Anton Corbijn, 2010)

If you've seen Jim Jarmusch's somnambulent The Limits of Control from the previous year, you'll know half the formula, with a displaced and superficially dispassionate hitman moving from place to place exchanging as few words as possible with those around him to avoid emotional involvement as much as visibility. The other half of the formula is the cold-blooded professional wanting to hang up his boots at last, upon finding the solitude and detachment too much to bear after all.
Thankfully, The American is more than the sum of those parts. This owes less to former star photographer-turned-director Corbijn's visual sense, not that having every shot so elegantly framed and lit is unwelcome by any means, than to mature sense in throttling back the pace from the frenetic norm for the hunted hunter genre, which is mirrored closely by George Clooney's performance. He's always been more than just an OTT Cary Grant impersonation and understands that less is more when working with such off-the-shelf ingredients. To be sure, without much novelty, the end result can be no timeless classic, but it's handsomely executed all the same.

6/10