There are only two real action scenes in Anton Corbijn’s “The American,” a film that runs nearly two hours long. When using an actor so closely associated with action as George Clooney, the artful suspense route is a big risk for a director to take, especially given the fact that Corbijn’s background is in music documentaries and films.

However, Corbijn’s gamble mostly pays off, as “The American” has many interesting twists and turns, a great supporting cast and beautiful scenery to keep the audience’s attention.

Clooney plays Jack, an American assassin who has to lay low in an Italian villa when a mission in Sweden goes horribly wrong. He keeps a low profile while carrying out an operation to make a weapon for a contact, but this becomes difficult when he befriends a local priest and begins a tryst with a prostitute.

Jack’s fine job of handling these relationships, amid the idea that he is possibly being followed and hunted down, provides the major conflict in the film. Jack realizes that he has put those who have become close to him in harm’s way.

Clooney has become the go-to man within the last few years as a sophisticated and refined man of action. He plays well to his type here, and while this performance is not as strong as his role in “Syriana” or his jaw-dropping turn in “Michael Clayton,” he portrays Jack with the same earnestness and attention to detail that has come to define him in the last decade.

Actress Violante Placidodoes does an excellent job as Clara, the prostitute, as it is through her that Jack begins to feel empathy after years of blocking his emotions. Paolo Bonacelli is also convincing as the concerned priest.

Combined with beautiful photography of the Swedish and Italian countryside, an interesting plot twist toward the end and enough suspense to keep things interesting, “The American” is a great non-musical debut for Corbijn. The film also adds further justification to the argument that George Clooney is the Cary Grant of our generation.