Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The INTERNATIONAL

“The INTERNATIONAL” (Clive Owen & Naomi Watts)

Ah, just what I’ve been waiting for – a film about the banking business!
This is, of course, no ordinary bank; the IBBC is the most diabolical bank since the Bank of the United States back in Andrew Jackson’s time. The IBBC wants to take over the world & apparently the only man that can stop them is Lou Salinger (Clive Owen)
But, as diabolical banker Skarrsen tells Lou – “Even if you kill me, there’ll be someone new to take my place.” So, what’s the point?
“The International” does raise some intriguing questions & possibilities; having said that, I only give this film a C+ rating mainly because Naomi Watts gives the absolute worst performance of her career. I don’t know if she simply couldn’t embody the character she was playing, or she was bored with her role in this film or I’ve been too infatuated with her since “The Ring” & “21 Grams” that I’ve overlooked her shortcomings, but she is awful in this film – I mean Kate Winslet/Drew Barrymore awful; she seemed to be reading her lines by rote & at times appeared to be clueless as to how her character was supposed to react. First, Charlize in “Hancock” & now this – my favorite blonde actresses are failing me!
The bulk of the scenes without Naomi’s Eleanor aren’t that bad – with two exceptions; the e-l-o-n-g-a-t-e-d shoot out scene at N.Y.’s Guggenheim museum & the totally inexplicable circumstances which lead to the final showdown between Lou & Skarrsen(Ulrich Thomsen) on the rooftop of the world’s largest Turkish temple. I’m giving nothing away by revealing that, it is in the trailer; Skarrsen points a shakey finger at Salinger & says, “You don’t have the authority to arrest me!” & Lou replies, “Who said anything about arresting you?” & raises his gun to eliminate the diabolical banker. The reason that scene loses its impact is due to the fact that moments earlier Saarson is surrounded by bodyguards & then, for some unexplainable reason they dessert him just when he needs them the most!
That seems to happen quite frequently in ‘thrillers’ doesn’t it? Even the rare ‘diabolical banking’ thriller can’t seem to escape the screenplay writers ‘easy out’ of simply leaving the lead bad guy unprotected without having to bother with thinking up a reason as to why his henchmen abandon their boss... I mean, how difficult would it be just to have one of them look at his watch & say, “Oh, sorry, boss, it’s time for our mandatory Union break, we’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”?
There was only one more ridiculous writing brain fart, but it was a doozy! Thankfully it happens during the twenty minute shoot out scene at the Guggenheim where every possible pane of glass is blown away in classic glass shattering slow motion! The plot unfolds that the IBBC uses the same assassin to bump off world leaders that aren’t willing to fall in line with the bank’s plans to take over the world, so Lou, with the aid of two NYPD detectives track the hit man to the museum where he is gunned down by about a dozen IBBC thugs armed with automatic weapons of mass (glass) destruction. Now, the 2 policemen had to show credentials in order to get their pistols thru security, yet the dozen or so assailants stroll thru the exhibits with firearms in hand without anyone batting an eye! The dumb line comes from Lou; every time one of the machine gun toting hired killers approaches, the thought-to-be-dead hit man springs back to life & blows them away with a single shot. Lou, who comes across as a fairly intelligent character then aims his gun at the guy that has just saved his life multiple times & says, “Drop the gun!” Even the assassin has to chuckle at the line – it was almost like the actor couldn’t believe Clive actually went along with the writer & director in thinking that was a reasonable thing for Lou to say...
These few ‘mistakes’/poor writing moments actually ruin what is otherwise a fairly interesting concept – Other than the one dumb line, Owen is very good in this. I liked him in “Inside Man”, but this role has more meat to it & he finally proves he can ‘command’ the screen as the lead actor - & most of the supporting roles are filled competently; I liked Armin Mueller-Stahl as one of the diabolical banker’s backers & Luca Barbareschi as Umberto Calvini, an Italian politician. If only Naomi hadn’t been so disappointing, I may have been able to forgive the flaws...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess I liked it a little more than Terry. These are the hardest movies to pull off for some reason because they can easily tend to go into absurd land and I didn't think this movie did that. Like I mentioned before, I liked they made Lou and everyman type guy instead of some super hero dude who has all kinds of karate moves and can drive on a wrong way street and jump from building from a hundred feet. And Owen plays him perfectly, especially when he bumbles around with his gun. It seemed realistic that he was actually kind of in fear of his situation.
Not a super great movie by any notion but I don't feel I wasted money seeing it in a theater though.

Anonymous said...

Having reread my review, I guess I did make it sound as though I didn't like it, but I did. True, not as much as dbm, but he's correct in his synopsis that it is better than most of the films of this nature. I got a little carried away with poking fun at the diabolical bankers, but what the hey, poking fun at things is what I do best - even when I like
something I just can't help but be sarcastic!