Don't bank on this being amazing! (The International (DVD))

Member Name: mummy2harry

Product:	The International (DVD)
Date:	14/10/09 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clive Owen, couple of good action sequences

Disadvantages: Naomi Watts, seemed muddled, questionable ethics

Louis Salinger works for Interpol and is determined to uncover some corruption within the world's most powerful bank, the IBBC (The International Bank of Business and Credit). He has found out that the bank is funding terrorist activity by buying in weapons and selling them off, and causing destabilisation in small country Governments too. Together with Manhattan District Attorney Eleanor Whitman, the pair travel across the world from Germany to Italy to find who is behind it, and also the assassinator of the Italian Prime Ministerial candidate who was willing to speak out against the IBBC. Will Salinger be able to catch the assassin and in the process stop the IBBC from completing their illegal activities, along with the IBBC employees who started the whole mess?

This was a film I've been wanting to see for quite a while. I do like Clive Owen, despite his not-so-good performance in Duplicity I saw a while ago, and the premise of the film sounded exciting to me. I've never actually seen Naomi Watts in a film before but have heard good things. Thrillers seem to be my sort of thing at the moment, having recently enjoyed Body of Lies, Traitor and other such films so I was curious to see how this would fare against film that both my fiance and I have really enjoyed.

The film began quite well and had a good shocking start that had us hooked, but the action did go downhill from there. It's a shame that they couldn't have kept up the pace and the action, but most of it after the initial opening was slow and involved a lot of dialogue and slower scenes between Owen and Watts. I did find the aim of it seemed to wander a bit - first it was find the bankers, then an assassin working for the bankers and, oh, back to the bankers again! There was one brilliant action sequence which takes place inside New York's MET museum, it was thrilling, exciting to watch and Owen in particular made a good job of the pace and making it look realistic. It is quite violent with a lot of blood, guns and bad language but nothing out of the ordinary for a film like this. Some of the special effects used in the movie were very good, from the fight in the museum to the running around rooftops, and this was good.

The actors in the film are good, but again I felt a lot of the performances fell quite flat. Clive Owen was good and was convincing as an Interpol determined to solve the problems with the IBBC and bring those involved to justice. He pulls off the action scenes well, the more serious side to his acting coming out and I definitely think it was an improvement from his performance in Duplicity. On the other hand, Naomi Watts was pretty awful in this - she didn't add any passion into her performance, she lacked any chemistry with Clive Owen and I think there are a lot of other actresses who would have done a much better job.

The other actors in the film were good enough, but none were particularly memorable. I was surprised to see Patrick Baladi (Mistresses and The Office) in this movie as a lawyer for the IBBC staff. He was convincing amongst much bigger names than he is usually starring with, and I enjoyed watching him on screen. I thought Armin Mueller-Stahl as an ex-German Secret Police Officer turned troubleshooter for the FBI was brilliant, and the rest of the cast all played well too. It's a good cast overall with just a couple of big names, but they are enough to make people want to watch it, it's just a shame that Watts was so bad.

Overall, I found the film to be good, but it was disappointing on several fronts. There wasn't enough action in it for a start, but the sequences that were there were very good, particularly the scene in the MET. The cast do a good job but Watts had no charisma or likeability at all and just seemed totally unaware of the role of her character throughout, and this really spoilt some of it for me. The message of the film was also a little dubious - the fact Louis Salinger has to act outside the law himself to bring justice to the bankers isn't right at all, yet it seems he has no other option in the movie. You have to watch over the credit to find out how things pan out for the IBBC and while I liked that they tried to bring about a final ending, I was still left a little cold by it. Disappointing - there are better thrillers out there by a country mile.

Directed by Tom Tykwer
Written by Eric Singer
Running Time: 118 minutes
Certificate: 15

Main Cast:
Clive Owen ... Louis Salinger
Naomi Watts ... Eleanor Whitman
Armin Mueller-Stahl ... Wilhelm Wexler
Ulrich Thomsen ... Jonas Skarssen
Brian F. O'Byrne ... The Consultant
Michel Voletti ... Viktor Haas
Patrick Baladi ... Martin White
Alessandro Fabrizi ... Inspector Alberto Cerutti
Felix Solis ... Detective Iggy Ornelas
Jack McGee ... Detective Bernie Ward

Thank you for reading.

Summary: A disappointing venture into the world of banking