New on DVD: ‘The American’

The American

Focus, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98

The key image for “The American” is a gun-toting George Clooney on the run, but audiences should know up front that this isn’t really an action movie. Clooney plays a hit man named Jack who learns there are people out to kill him. So Jack mopes around an Italian mountain village, plotting his survival in between conversations with a priest and dalliances with a prostitute. Director Anton Corbijn and screenwriter Rowan Joffé (adapting a Martin Booth novel) are more interested in evoking the existential moodiness of Italian westerns and French gangster movies than they are in quickening pulses. But the pictures the film paints are very, very pretty and, even in a stoic role, Clooney evokes sympathy as a dangerous man trying to find his moral center. The DVD and Blu-ray add deleted scenes, a short featurette and an insightful Corbijn commentary track.

Archer: Season One

20th Century Fox, $29.98

Spy movie clichés meet raunchy Adult Swim-style absurdity in the FX animated series “Archer,” all about a tough-as-nails, womanizing assassin and the dysfunctional black-ops agency that employs him. Archer contrasts the mundanity of office life with the super-cool style of an action movie, and it satirizes the over-the-top machismo of heroes who kill and bed indiscriminately. The jokes are pitch-black and frequently perverse, but when it clicks, “Archer” is one of the funniest shows on TV. The DVD contains all 10 episodes from the first season plus the unaired pilot, deleted scenes and a comprehensive making-of featurette.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Screen Gems, $28.95; Blu-ray, $34.95/$39.95

What began in the ‘90s as a simple horror-themed shooter/puzzle video game has become a sprawling multimedia empire, spawning toys, comics, books, cartoons and films — each with their own increasingly dense mythology. “Resident Evil: Afterlife” is the fourth of the film series, starring Milla Jovovich as a woman named Alice who’s gained superhuman strength — and multiple clones — as the result of dastardly scientific experiments. In “Afterlife,” Alice joins a few other human survivors of the global zombie plague to fight against both the undead and the corporation that spawned them. Nothing new here; just more barely coherent sci-fi/horror mayhem, but fans of the franchise won’t beef. The DVD and Blu-ray add deleted scenes, outtakes, featurettes and a commentary track and a cool picture-in-picture glimpse behind-the-scenes.

Twelve

20th Century Fox, $22.98; Blu-ray, $29.99

The camp level is high in “Twelve,” director Joel Schumacher and screenwriter Jordan Melamed’s adaptation of Nick McDonell’s cult novel about well-to-do New York teens always on the lookout for a new high. Chace Crawford plays “White Mike,” the strait-laced drug dealer who orchestrates the decadence and then struggles to control it during one crazy party. Alternately exploitative and moralizing, “Twelve” is entertaining almost in spite of itself, and perfect for people who like to fantasize about being rich while feeling superior at the same time.

And...

“And Soon the Darkness” (Anchor Bay, $26.97; Blu-ray, $34.98); “Germany in Autumn” (Facets, $29.95); “Jersey Shore: Season Two” ( MTV, $29.99); “Legendary” (Vivendi, $24.95); “Merantu” (Magnolia, $26.98; Blu-ray, $29.98); “Samson & Delilah” (Indiepix, $24.95); “ United States of Tara: The Second Season” (Showtime/Paramount, $49.99).

calendar@latimes.com