We’ve been talking a lot on these pages about next week’s hitman thriller “The American.” And rightfully so. It’s dumbfounding how a new George Clooney movie could have such a low profile. I saw one TV ad for it yesterday, so maybe the campaign is ramping up, but the movie still seems completely overlooked by the general public. And with Focus Features not screening it for most critics or journalists until next week, the consensus seems to be that it’s a dud.

Maybe, maybe not. I’ve casually talked to a couple people who’ve seen it, and they say it’s actually quite good. Even Oscar good. However, it seems that director Anton Corbijn (of the great Joy Division biopic “Control”) has made a chilly, thoughtful, languidly paced movie that ends without everything wrapped up neatly. In other words, the kind of movie that might not play well in multiplexes across America, but one that might be successful in arthouse theaters — and come awards season. It’s also the kind of movie that a studio may have trouble boiling down to 30-second TV ads, one sheets and snappy trailers.

So could it be that “The American” is less a failure in filmmaking, as seems to the current conventional wisdom, and more a failure in marketing? We’ll know next week.