A mysterious man fends off killers, drives mopeds like a pro and knows the mechanics of foreign women and discreet guns like he was born with a passport and a killer instinct. We don’t learn much about this rugged, James Bond-like figure known as Jack, then Edward, and finally, Mr. Butterfly (except that he’s George Clooney in real life), but somehow it’s mesmerizing watching his every move in deliberate, slow takes, and often set to brooding music.

Movie Review: Going The Distance

In The American, Clooney plays an archetypal loner whose work involves a lot of bullets, bloodshed and hiding. The tension is palpable from the the first moments, when Mr. B’s idyllic Swedish getaway is cut short by guys with weapons that mar a snowy, virginal setting. Their arrival quickly establishes the film’s churning sense of danger that only intensifies, and prompts Mr. B to relocate to a small Italian mountain town. It’s there, tucked among cobblestone streets and nestled in fog, where he quietly tackles his next assignment -- designing a gun for a female assassin worthy of any 007 flick -- and befriends a portly Italian priest (Paolo Bonacelli), who instinctively sees through Mr. B’s chiseled, protective exterior.