Phillip Bergson

AMERICAN STAR is an engaging contemporary thriller, well-directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, colourful, intriguing and enhanced by some unexpected star turns.Ian McShane- another 81-year-old!- excels as a grizzled, hardened professional--well, let's say he he has not come to Fuerteventura on holiday, or on real estate business.Gradually, there are enigmatic hints in dialogue and action, and bit by bit  connections between the characters are revealed. Settings and locations are fine and attractive. He is of course a world-weary hit man, and his target is only belatedly revealed, to him and to  the audience. The camera follows him implacably in and out of smart hotel rooms,and seedier local dives , where he is befriended by a free- spirited foreign bar-girl. In turn ,he befriends casually a young boy he finds in his hotel corridor, unhappy with his parents' rowing in their room. There is a rowdy Englishman, who seems to be some kind of distant relative- and possibly an unwelcome colleague-who keeps popping up, more or less annoyingly. The waitress introduces Mr McShane's character  to her maman, played by another legend of the screen, the fine Fanny Ardant, in a single lunch-time rendezvous, whlle the startling denouement briefly brings a star of German cinema, Thomas Kretschmann, for a most  uncomfortable cameo. The historic wreck, which gives the film its misleading title, is the wartime luxury liner American Star, which looms over the nearby sea-shore as a war-time victim and gives proceedings an air of avoided-or impending- doom.Though clearly a Spanish production, the film has good, literate dialogue in English and the playing of this variegated cast is well-handled. Appearances are constantly deceptive, which ensures our attention is gripped until the overwhelming end.A cataclysm in the Canaries, with a nostalgic soundtrack of 60s musical hits.

AMERICAN STAR  Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego  UK  2024   107 minutes   on international release now in cinemas

American Star is written by Nacho Faerna (The Mother, Summer in the University) who wrote the screen play for The Ugliest Woman in the World (Méliès d’Argent 2000 at Fantasporto Festival, "Best Film" at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2000). The film is produced by  Michael Elliott, known for Catch Me Daddy (2014) and BAFTA-nominated Jawbone (2017).

An assassin on final assignment arrives in Fuerteventura to kill a man he has never met. But the target is delayed. Instead of following protocol he stays, drawn to the island, the people, and a ghostly shipwreck. When the target returns, the world has shifted. Before everything was simple, now nothing is...