The International

Louis Salinger (Owen) is an Interpol agent working with Whitman (Watts) a Manhattan DA investigating the IBBC – a corrupt international bank that wants to control the illegal two hundred million dollar business of weapons trading. Salinger has his own personal agenda for bringing the bank to justice and the bank will stop at nothing to ensure that the deal goes through.

This seems is a slightly overlooked movie, which to me, is strange as the idea of an evil corrupt bank pulling strings all over the world seems very relevant in the light of the current economic climate. I found it intriguing of how this polished, smooth, seemingly respectable business was actually more concerned with dealing with death and will stop at nothing including murder to achieve its aims, its not a new idea but maybe for me it seems to be possibly close to actual fact.

Salinger is a man with a mission, he is haggard, haunted and totally focused on the task of bringing down the corrupt bankers he’s like a dog that wont let go of a bone. Which maybe is why I felt that Whitman was less believable and less motivated – these are really bad people, ones you wouldn’t mess with if you had something to loose, like family for instance, Salinger doesn’t Whitman does. I also found it strange that the “baddies” didn’t exploit this – if they really are as corrupt as they appear to be.

Overall the movies good although it is flawed – Owen tears through cities openly waving a gun and no one reacts, even in New York the security and police seem to react slowly. There is a great scene set in the Guggenheim Museum which is on par with Bourne or Bond but apart from that scene the action is slower and more pedestrian which means that the movie doesn’t quite live up to its action thriller billing.

Its worth looking at, although don’t expect too much action packed thrills; this film is a little more cerebral than that.

Director: Tom Tykwer

Cast:
Clive Owen – Louis Salinger
Naomi Watts – Eleanor Whitman
Armin Mueller-Stahl – Wilhelm Wexler
Ulrich Thomsen – Jonas Skarssen

To view the trailer click here

Read more at: Nerve Curve

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.