I have not read Martin Booth’s novel, A Very Private Gentleman, on which screenwriter Rowan Joffe based this film. I think that is the screenwriter of 28 Weeks Later can’t inject some adrenaline into the story of some guy who lives perpetually in secret but isn’t a spy, assassin, or exile, and who for some reason is on the run all the time — if Joffe can’t make that interesting, I may not want to read the book.
The idea seems tailor-made for star George Clooney. He plays a sexy, aloof American slipping in and out of jobs in Europe, dallying with women for short periods of time and reading about butterflies when he’s not covering his tracks. The problem I had with the film was not only not being invested in Clooney’s vague work, such as it was shown, but the amount of time we spend watching him travel, evade, wait, think, walk, gaze, read, ponder, drive, dodge, drink coffee, stare into the middle distance, with occasional interruptions for exercise and sex. Whoever he is eluding, he’s only just good enough at it that he’s still alive — the stakes are obviously high, but we don’t know why he’s under constant surveillance requiring incognito living and overly cautious coffee drinking. “Meet me at the bar,” barks his superior/handler/cohort. So he goes to pastry shop and waits, watches, drinks a coffee. “Come to this hotel.” He drives up, makes lingering eye contact with innocuous locals, and takes off. The intrigue should pique our interest, but the amount of shoe leather paid out compared to the amount of plot is overwhelmingly soporific. It puts me in mind of the 1970’s dramas, all mood and tone and character work, with a bombastic score to make up for yet another stunning but aimless drive through the Italian countryside, and just as little character work.
For what it’s worth, Clooney is completely committing to whatever is going on in his character’s head. His visits to the brothel are as intense and important to him as his sheltering behind a stone wall while being shot at. And he’s being shot at because…he gets hired to make specialty items for underground sorts who use them in dastardly deeds. It seems counter-productive for anyone to want to take him out of the food chain, yet there it is. Look out! Someone just saw you! Time to dig out a new passport and throw away your cell phone. His interest in butterflies seems arbitrary, not useful for a metaphor or for a deus ex machina (though it appears to represent the relative safety of one particular setting). Meanwhile, he can’t pursue a regular person’s life even if he wants to, but he really doesn’t seem to want to. And I just can’t force myself to care no matter how nice it all looks.
MPAA Rating R- violence, sexual content, nudity
Release date 9/1/10
Time in minutes 105
Director Anton Corbin
Studio Focus Features