The International
2009
**
Director: Tom Tykwer
Cast: Clive Owen, Haluk Bilginer, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Brian F. O'Byrne, Ulrich Thomsen
For years, a British Interpol agent has tried to nail IBBC, a colossal merchant bank who are prepared to silence anyone about to blow the whistle on its illegal dealings in arms and money laundering. Now he joins forces with the Assistant D.A. of New York City. The first-time screenplay by Eric Warren Singer was inspired by the real-life BCCI scandal, but the end result is a frustratingly generic and predictably cynical and paranoid conspiracy thriller. It's set in a global village where everyone addresses each other in perfect English. The story has an obsessive hero who has no life outside the case, and a female partner who exists only to appeal to Americans and women in particular. The villain is an omnipotent evil corporation, whose covert activities involve assassinating people around famous landmarks on a daily basis. Regardless of all the silliness, the main failing of the film is that it's dull and predictable. Towards the end, Tykwer livens things up with an exciting shootout in the Guggenheim museum. Not that it makes any logical sense.
