American Star (2024)

American-Star-(2024)
American Star (2024)

As if breathing life into an age-old tale, “American Star” seeks to highlight how a contract killer strategy executes his most recent contract. The contract killer ages during the role, and realizing he is about to reach the end of his journey, starts his last contract. This film seems to be more gentle and slow than other movies shot in Fuerteventura, other than the cinematographic and narrative storytelling features other than the scenic background. McShane gives an involuntary eye performance that complements the storyline and is suitable as the key actor who believes that actions speak for themselves. In fact, everything has been expressed through body language. The movie comprises of moments and Ian McShane is the lead star in many shots where actions are performed.

What’s the movie all about? I’m asking because I watched “America Star,” but that film was laughable and I think it wasn’t completely conceptual because the movie’s director Gonzalo López-Gallego occasionally assisted with the editing while Iñaki Faerna the film’s screenwriter had to literally integrate pause-worthy action sequences slotted long apart; the reason for this is more that it is the type of film that it is which is just a visual and aural experience while the theme, which is also the case, is entirely different. 

The house in Fuerteventura is rented by Wilson who appears to be the lead character in the film and after he has rented a car we see him in the vision of the desert seeking what would be the location of his target, however, rather, unfortunately, the house is empty and it is only moments later once a girl named Nora Arnezeder arrives in the picture is when Wilson gets the chance to leave.

Wilson arrives in the city and makes it clear that he is there for a purpose such as interacting with the locals and watching live performances but in actuality, he is enjoying the amenities provided by a lavish hotel. He interacts with hotel employees and other locals, including a boy named Oscar Coleman. The boy was sitting on the floor of the hotel hall when he looked through a door that was supposed to be locked. In one of his excursions in search of drinks, Wilson meets Gloria, a bartender he had previously seen in a club. She becomes so attached to Wilson that, within mere seconds, she wants to introduce him to her mother (Fanny Ardant) at her house. The relationship between Wilson and Gloria is… What strikes Wilson and Gloria the Gardener’s relationship is the process of building the relationship, this accelerates Wilson’s internal tension and uncovers new traits in Gloria’s character.

The audience waits patiently throughout the entire movie American Star, not just for Wilson to catch his prey on vacation in Fuerteventura. The film does not specify Wilson’s age, but there is an 81-year-old McShane who also had a dialogue about his character’s involvement in the Falklands War in 1982 which gives you a sense hints he was not a young man. However it does not truly matter what his official vintage is because he exudes the impression that he is indeed an older man, Wilson, who is waiting for his death. A waiting calmness has also been placed into him where the path that lays ahead of him is longer than the one that is behind him. He’s waiting for his dusk because he has experienced better days, aside from his official vintage. Furthermore, the title of the picture is the ship that has been ruined that is along the shore of the island. For that particular ship, the man however only barely misses his youth, and in this particular case, everything tries to tell him, one only needs to know a little to have a picture of the story.

The movie supposedly tries to show the ship as a lifeless object, however, this does not correlate as well as one would think.

To put it simply, noir characters appear to be helpless individuals who have no way of saving themselves from a tragic end regardless of the efforts that they put in to rewrite the tale. “American Star” goes further away from the European arthouse approach and shifts towards film noir, which is a cinematic-esque style. A combination of the gentle, almost playful tone that most of the plot centers around with a completely unnecessary attitude that the film leaves the audience in when it turns noir, results in a sour aftertaste.  

But this is also a critical juncture when everything else starts piecing together, especially when Wilson encounters Ryan, the Zack of his previous squad, in the film. Young Ryan is a professional killer, who appears to be tasked with ensuring that Wilson doesn’t go off the track. Or after Wilson has done whatever is required of him, all he has to do is kill Wilson. His true identity is unclear to us due to the brash way in which he presents himself as a ….

Well, at least until he went too far with Wilson. In fact, it is the other way around, you begin to regard him with hate, only to have matters be made more complex. Viewed through a different lens, he is young, self-assured, and in some ways, revolting.

Ryan is one of those gullible kids who thinks he is untouchable and for all we know, Wilson too must have been one in his earlier days. 

It is hard to disregard the fact that López-Gallego appears to have some kind of understanding with McShane (they both featured in and wrote the script for the movie The Hollow Point in the year 2012). In the latter, when Wilson bears reference to the child and the mother of Gloria, there is a hint of his genetic affection. He is good looking, and laughs nicely, and once you hear him laugh, one wonders about the trade he made to assume the life that he does now; which involves traveling through sub-urban areas dressed in dark covering, carrying a gun, and going to meet an unknown person with lethal intentions. This is the case, however, when one is in the company of a taciturn man, which more often than not, Wilson acts like, the same way Clint Eastwood or Alain Delon used to do with their audiences.

The actor McShane has been a prominent character actor for six decades and started to gain attention in his sixties after portraying captivating villains in some of the worst movies and television shows including Sexy Beast, Deadwood, John Wick, American Gods and a few others. Also, he happens to be ‘of the sixties’ – more so of the seventies while he seems more comfortable in productions where the characters are not simply categorized into good and bad, turning into some sort of flaming impregnated story which is up for interpretation and opinion as to what message the director was conveying.

American Star can be termed as the most intense or relentless work of art. The movie’s style and archetype tend to gravitate more toward the hardcore fans of The Limey, where Stamp completes the role of an assassin directed inside of a crime movie. 

The hitting sentence in the postmodernism genre has been done when old-school action movie fans are rewarded with that terminator setup, and with short wrappings of the previous sets, movies as a whole have not been revised. His contribution to “one last job” Westerns and many others who fully mastered such nuances was a reverse disservice to those whose polishing would probably hurt. It had an emotional distinctiveness prevailing throughout the movie that Looking out of the brilliant asymmetric structure background. It is admirable the López-Gallego is patient.

Memorable memorable scenes such as prolonged close-up shots of the face of the lead actress will come into existence due to direction unrivaled by acting.

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