Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego
A hitman waiting out a delayed job on a wind-battered Spanish island finds the wait more dangerous than the kill itself in American Star, a 2024 thriller from director Gonzalo López-Gallego.
What is American Star about?
Ian McShane plays a veteran contract killer sent to Fuerteventura to finish one last job before retirement. The problem is his target hasn't shown up yet, leaving him stranded in a quiet coastal town with nothing to do but wait. Rather than stay invisible, he starts talking to locals, wandering the volcanic coastline, and getting pulled into the orbit of a hotel owner played by Nora Arnezeder. A rusted shipwreck sitting just offshore becomes a recurring image for a man haunted by everything he has done to get here. As days pass, the professional distance he has spent a career building starts to crack, and the island itself seems to be working on him as much as any person does. Thomas Kretschmann and Fanny Ardant round out a small cast of island residents whose own histories intersect with his uneasy limbo.
Cast & crew
McShane anchors the film with a weary, watchful performance that trades his usual sharp-tongued energy for something quieter and more internal. Arnezeder gives the hotel owner real warmth without softening the story's tension, and Kretschmann and Ardant add texture as islanders who have their own reasons for staying put.
Context & significance
Shot on location in the Canary Islands, American Star leans on its setting as much as its plot, using the volcanic landscape and Atlantic light to slow the pacing of a genre normally built around momentum. López-Gallego, working from a script rooted in mood rather than plot twists, treats the assassin premise as a frame for a character study rather than an action showcase.
Where & how to watch
American Star streams on K-Time with a free account login, no purchase needed to browse the page itself. The platform includes a Persian dub and Persian subtitles for this title, alongside a Farsi-language interface built for Persian-speaking viewers wherever they are watching from.