Who is George Clooney if he isn’t a scoundrel or a suave man of action, if he doesn’t have license to flirt with the audience? It’s his charm and verve—and yeah, his looks—that have made him so fun to watch for the last decade. So that’s why it’s such a drag that The American snuffs out that rakish twinkle in his eye and turns him into a dour, depressed misanthrope.

Clooney plays Jack, an assassin who lies low in a small Italian town after a job goes sideways. He’s getting too old for this shit, you see, but he agrees to take on one last job—the design and construction of a high-powered rifle for another merc—and then he’s out! (Not that he’d put it that way; mopey Jack would rather let a conversation peter out than slam the door on it.) Sure, it’s a cliched premise and you can see the ending coming like you’re looking at it through a sniper’s long-range scope, but at least it had the potential for a little intrigue or action. Instead, we get two hours of Clooney gritting his teeth and walking through the strangely maze-like—and absurdly empty—streets of his temporary home, looking for, what, exactly? His spine? A defibrillator? Maybe a baguette to raise his blood sugar? What little action there is—a car chase here, a shootout there—is so anticlimactic that it undercuts the slow-burn approach that director Anton Corbijn is aiming for.

There’s certainly a lot to be said for playing off type, something Clooney did with much more satisfying results when he played a grieving widower in the spacey headtrip Solaris. But in The American he just seems miscast. (Hey, Anton, why buy a rocket launcher when what you need is a squirt gun?) The only genuine moments comes from Jack’s relationship with Carla, a local prostitute: He’s aggressive and assured when he’s paying for her services, but when she shows interest in him outside of the bedroom, he’s as awkward as a teenager on a first date. After years of killing, he’s lost when it comes to love.

As for the rest of Jack’s personality? You’ll have to try to divine it from the butterfly tattoo on his back and his knowledge of the ethereal insects. Because Jack isn’t a stone cold killer. He’s just…cold.

The American is in theaters September 1.