The International (Movie Review)

Movie Review
The International
Starring: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts
Directed by Tom Tykwer
Runtime: 1:58

Sometimes you come across a film that you want to really like even though you get the feeling beforehand that the movie will eventually disappoint you. On the rare occasion you still really want to like the film after being frustrated and bored to tears the entire two hours spent watching the film. Luckily, Tom Tykwer’s The International makes you so angry at it within fifteen minutes that you’ll lose all sentimentality towards the film long before the credits roll and maybe you’ll only want to consider buying the DVD only for an excuse to break something.

Clive Owen plays Interpol agent Louis Salinger. He believes that one of the world’s largest banks is supporting worldwide terrorist activities. Everyone who comes close to finding out the truth is killed or winds up dead by “accident”, including several of Salinger’s colleagues. Salinger becomes obsessed with uncovering the conspiracy and with the help of a New York District Attorney, Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts). They slowly begin to pick away at each piece of the puzzle all while putting themselves increasingly in harms way.

Let us start off with the good because there really isn’t much of it. Clive Owen continues to prove that he is one of the best actors around. He plays Salinger so well that you feel and empathize why he has become so hard and determined to stop the bank. The action scene in the Guggenheim Museum was very well done and was not only the most suspenseful and thrilling part of the movie but one of the best action sequences all year. The intense parts are done very well and are far from boring. Even though there were more bullets used by everyone than Expos fans, in the end, ingenuity ends the scene rather than the good guy blowing his way through the baddies with a barrage of bullets. It was clever and methodical enough that even a non-action fan would take notice and appreciate it.

The problem is that most of the movie is boring. Outside of the Guggenheim scene, the movie moves at a snail’s pace. There is so many hidden factors in the movie and so many plot details that it is very easy to fall behind on what is happening in the movie. There is more covertness and secrecy in this film than maybe the entire Bourne Trilogy. Even the ending leaves you scratching your head and wondering what exactly did you just experience for the last two hours.

The relationship between Salinger and Whitman remind me of The X-Files’s Mulder and Scully. He’s obsessed with uncovering the truth while she supports him no matter how much it seems like he’s gone off the deep end. They share a bond that is greater than friendship. She’ll follow him halfway across the world even though it will jeopardize her career. The thing though is that The X-Files had several years on television to develop that relationship to the point where you can understand the complexity of their relationship because of the experiences they shared. In The International, they barely know each other at the beginning but towards the end you almost swear they’re dying to kiss each other. It all feels a little forced and too rushed to feel natural.

Actually, the film kind of feels like a Mulder and Scully adventure minus the aliens. Salinger works for an organization which he feels isn’t giving him the authority to actually do something about the bank’s evil intentions. Deep down he suspects that they (and other police organizations across the world) may actually be colluding with the bank considering all the hurdles he has to jump through. Salinger has friends in all the right places but they fear that he is not within the right state of mind. He’s relentless in his pursuit for the truth even if means he has to alienate everyone to get to it.

The biggest problem with the movie though is that if everyone who gets close to revealing the truth gets murdered or suffers an “accident”, why doesn’t something happen to Salinger? The bank has already eliminated many high power threats; why wouldn’t they take out a low-level investigator like Salinger? If the plot had actually followed the storyline, Salinger would have been killed within the first fifteen minutes of the movie.

The International is a bad film. Outside of the Guggenheim action sequence, the movie offers nothing to the viewer that they can’t find elsewhere performed stronger in better films or television shows. Not only is the film an easy recommendation to avoid but it would be recommended that Clive Owen and Naomi Watts best leave this film off of their C.V.s.

(☆)