Thursday, February 26, 2009
For all its timely premise and layered storytelling, The International is a surprisingly generic action thriller. Even more baffling is that it’s directed by Tom Tykwer, the German director who gave us great movies such as Run Lola Run and Perfume. Given this and the star power of Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, The International seems as if it should be poised to be a pretty taut, solid film. But it’s not.
The story centers on two agents, one from Interpol (Owen) and one from the New York DA’s office (Watts) trying to bring down an international bank they think is a hotbed of laundering for international organized crime. Of course, the bank, the IBBC, is able to pull of all kinds of legal (and illegal) moves to keep witnesses from coming forward. If you guessed corporate loopholes and mounting body counts swept under the rug, you’ve got it.
Owen’s Agent Salinger is a driven, interesting character with a shadowy past—the kind of character he seems born to play. And the guy does play a good action hero. Armin Mueller-Stahl (Eastern Promises) also does a solid job as a bank board member who turns informant to Owen and Watts’ characters. The weak link here is Watts. Normally, she’s the kind of actress who can bring necessary gravitas to any role that requires it. But not here. She remains flat and seems to phone in her performance. Her character, Eleanor Whitman, is a motherly character, both in her role as an actual mother (she’s married and has a son) and in her relationship to Owen’s Agent Salinger.
Overall, The International isn’t a movie with a whole lot to say. The character relationships that might have saved it from mere mediocrity just aren’t there. The action sequences are good, but they’re just barely worth the wait.
Rating: 2 out of 4 stars
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