He may be one of Hollywood’s biggest actors, but George Clooney couldn’t resist getting behind the camera on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival on Friday night.
The acting legend, 65, attended the premiere of his film Furies, a Lebanese heist thriller.
Early reviews from critics at the festival have praised the drama, calling it riveting and high-action.
Clooney, who arrived in Venice with his wife Amal, serves as the executive producer on the film and received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Award on the festival’s opening day.
Dressed in a navy suit and partially unbuttoned shirt, the actor appeared in high spirits as he posed with the rest of the cast and playfully took photos on a huge camera.
He may be one of Hollywood’s biggest actors, but George Clooney couldn’t resist getting behind the camera on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival on Friday night
The acting legend, 65, attended the premiere of his film Furies, a Lebanese heist thriller
The plot follows two sisters (Rym Mroue as Maro and Maria Nakouzi as Dalia) who hatch a plan to rob a bank to reclaim their own frozen savings from corrupt financial institutions
Furies is set following the economic collapse in Beirut. The plot follows two sisters (Rym Mroue as Maro and Maria Nakouzi as Dalia) who hatch a plan to rob a bank to reclaim their own frozen savings from corrupt financial institutions. It is directed by Rami Kodeih.
The Hollywood Reporter wrote: ‘From its opening scenes in a bank, where bureaucratic blah-di-blah gives way to sheer terror, to its gripping final sequence, the movie infuses a time-tested genre with the unpredictable energy of real people interacting — and, crucially, the offhand wisea*s humour of siblings who know and love each other deeply, brought to messy, magnificent life in two spectacular performances.’
IndieWire called the film-making ‘kinetic and alive’.
They wrote: ‘The beats are familiar, the story formulaic, but the filmmaking is kinetic and alive, worthy of the largest possible audience.
‘George Clooney stepped in as an executive producer, but my understanding is that his role was more to get out of the way of serious filmmaking to support it, rather than to intervene creatively.’
Screendaily called it a ‘messy but enjoyable watch’ and praised Rym and Maria’s on-screen chemistry.
They said: ‘Propelled by the considerable awards success of his short films (which include A Sheherazade Tale, The Mill, Maki & Zorro and Alina) and by the presence of George Clooney and Grant Heslov as executive producers, this vividly full-blooded crime thriller should generate plenty of buzz following its premiere in Venice’s Spotlight strand and subsequent screening in TIFF’s Centrepiece programme.
‘It’s a messy but enjoyable watch and, while the nuts and bolts of the plotting might not be as tight as they could be, the off-the-scale chemistry between Nakouzi and Mroue is the glue which holds the crackling chaos together. ‘
The film’s stars Rym Mroue and Maria Nakouzi posed with George, who was an executive producer
Dressed in a navy suit and partially unbuttoned shirt, the actor appeared in high spirits as he posed with the rest of the cast and playfully took photos on a huge camera
In the nearly 30 years since George attended his first Venice Film Festival with Out of Sight, he´s become something of a fixture
In the nearly 30 years since George attended his first Venice Film Festival with Out of Sight, he´s become something of a fixture.
It´s a place where he´s enjoyed many significant moments, from his wedding at the Aman Venice to the debut of Good Night, and Good Luck, which earned him his first Oscar nomination for best director.
Last year he attended with Jay Kelly, in which he plays a movie star who travels to Italy for a lifetime achievement award.
And the actor paid tribute to his ‘bada*s’ lawyer wife in his acceptance speech for his Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement on Wednesday.
Amal, a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer, has represented Yazidi survivors and helped secure historic legal victories holding ISIS members accountable for genocide.
‘By the way, my wife’s the only person to have ever put ISIS on trial and won,’ the Hollywood star said. ‘She’s a badass, and she gets the job done. We do it for our families. We do it for our friends.’
He added: ‘Amal’s taken some very difficult stands over the years, and we’ve had to face some pretty heavy criticism based on that. I wrote an op-ed about President Joe Biden. I got some s***.
‘We have really interesting conversations around the table. But you know, we also have two nine-year-old kids, and we have a normal family life, and there’s a lot of laughing and a lot of love, and we’re very lucky, and we’re really aware of that.’
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