- While watching Tom Tykwer's The International, I found myself puzzling over how difficult and expensive it must have been to film in New York's Guggenheim Museum. Then they started riddling the place with bullet holes and broken glass, and I realized that I had been fooled. The filmmakers apparently constructed a lifesize replica of the museum in Berlin all so that the film could have a shootout in a recognizable museum. They also conducted location filming in Italy, France, Turkey, and the United States. In case you haven't figured it out, somebody went to a lot of trouble to make The International feel authentic. Unfortunately, that authenticity extends to the fact that a tale about illegal international banking in real life would be pretty boring.
- Anchoring the story is Louis Salinger (Clive Owen), an Interpol agent who witnesses the sudden death of an informant and immediately suspects foul play. His American contact, Assistant D. A. Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), may be the only person who believes him until an arms manufacturer (Luca Barbareschi) prepared to dish on the same international banking organization is assassinated during a political speech. This time around, there are two assassins involved, the most interesting of whom (Brían F. O'Byrne) they track to the Guggenheim. There, he meets with a Henry Kissinger look-alike (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and, well, I already told you about the bullets. Eventually, Salinger and Whitman follow the thread of corruption to international banking chairman Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen), but it's not clear anybody can touch him legally. As you might expect, that leaves only the option of resorting to illegal means, a choice that Salinger has apparently also taken in the past.
- With this plot and the aforementioned location filming, you might imagine The International to be a compelling suspense story. In actuality, it is so laborious a film that the word "suspense" would be completely inappropriate. Owen and Watts are two terrific actors, but even they cannot survive the perfect vacuum surrounding them. The film's direction involves an overabundance of straight-on shots, the writing is unmemorable, names like Salinger and Whitman are laughable, and the soundtrack comes across as a discarded set of John Powell b-sides. Speaking of which, I remember being annoyed when The Bourne Identity and its increasingly unsteady sequels inspired a lackluster spate of international action films a few years back. When you subtract the "action" from "international action," you really are left with The International.
- Tibor Feldman, of Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid fame, was somehow in this film. James Rebhorn, too.
