Review: the International

Imagine if you will, all the intrigue of international banking, gun fighting and INTERPOL while being suffocated with a plastic bag. The International offers the audience all of the eye bulging, fingernail scraping, life stealing comfort of having our faces covered with a dry cleaning bag.

INTERPOL agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is bent on bringing down the corrupt multi-national International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC.) Working with him is the beautiful and useless New York Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts). Insert convoluted, nonsensical plot involving bankers and shooting here...

A discussion about how large multi-national banks manipulate events in the world by controlling debt is a serious and important one, especially considering the state of the world's economy right now. The International's writer, Eric Singer, shows sheer incompetence, unintentionally covering this subject makes trite the significance of the topic. It is especially frustrating now, during a time when the world is raw from the rub these banks have dished out.

The writers didn't just screw up the plot. The International is dotted with eye rolling, moronic one-liners. The characters would be ashamed if they knew their last words before their deaths. My favorite line of doom was Clive Owen's character Agent Salinger saying, "I've seen that shoe print before." On what planet would the audience buy such a travesty of spoken words? The catastrophic writing rips the credibility out from under the actors.

Not that the actors had earned any credibility in the International, especially Naomi Watts. Eleanor Whitman, Watts' character, is extraneous and superfluous to the story, even though she has nearly as much face time as Owen. Naomi Watts acts the part as uselessly as her character is written. She seems to lack commitment to the story and the character. What is an audience supposed to do when the leading lady isn't even interested in the story? Listen to the music?

I wish, but even the music is disingenuous. When the movie begins I was surprised that the music was powerful enough to peak my interest in the story. Unfortunately, as the movie petered out, it was obvious that the only thing moving interest in the story along was the music. When I realized it was the music influencing my attention, I was even more ticked off at the director of The International, Tom Tykwer.

Tom Tykwer couldn't decide if he was making a shoot-em-up, a corporate espionage flick or a legal thriller. There are times that the cinematography has a Mod feeling, but it never quite pulls all the elements to completion. The writing is shameful. The fight choreography is uninteresting. The ending makes the entire film a waste of time. Tom Tykwer can hardly be called a director because The International was in serious need of direction.

It would be easy to simulate The International without spending the money in a theater. Go to the downtown branch of your bank at 12:15pm on Monday, listen to the Jaws sound track and stand in line. When it's your turn to see the teller, run as fast as you can at the counter and slam your body into the counter. Then withdrawal $4. When the teller looks at you like she's wondering if she should call the cops to have you institutionalized, you'll have the full The International experience.