Trama Internacional

The Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and his partner are investigating the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC) in a joint operation with the District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) from Manhattan in a two hundred million dollars illegal business of weapons trading. They schedule a meeting with an insider informer from IBBC at the Central Station in Berlin; however his partner is mysteriously killed after the encounter. Salinger finds the identity of the informer when he sees that the Vice President of Acquisitions André Clement (Georges Bigot) had died in a car accident. Salinger and Whitman head to Milan where they meet the politician Umberto Calvini (Luca Giorgio Barbareschi), who is great manufacturer of arms, and he explains that IBBC is interested in buying the missile guiding system that he produces in his factory. When Calvini is murdered by a sniper in a political rally, Salinger and Whitman head to New York following the killer and later to Istanbul, and disclose a scheme of arms supply and destabilization of governments to make their nations slaves of debt. Further, the bank is protected by legal systems and only if Salinger crosses the line he might bring some justice to the corrupt system.

"The International" is a surprisingly effective blockbuster thriller. I had lower expectations with this movie, but I really liked it. The complex story of corruption and greedy has flaws, but holds the attention of the viewer until the last scene. The way Louis Salinger easily travels to many countries is strange, since we simple mortals need documentation, money, reservations, connections in the airports, but his character has no problem even when he is chased by the police. In Guggenheim, the always effective police force of the movies takes a long time to come to the place and arrives only after the shooting. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Trama International" ("International Plot")

No complaints at all about this gripping movie. The plot is original compared to the usual cops versus bad guys trash that often gets pumped out. The story centers around an international bank that makes its profits by supplying weapons to combatants in the various conflicts that cover the planet. Clive Owen is an Interpol guy trying to bring the bank down. The script is excellent, the acting is very good and the photography is above par for this kind of film. Excellent direction. This movie doesn't try too hard, is free of the clichés that often serve instead of fresh ideas and has a great shoot-out where the surprises and action keep you on the edge of your seat without trying to overwhelm with gore and jerky camera work.

Go see it, you'll enjoy it.

I'm a fan of German director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The Princess And The Warrior, Heaven, Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer). The story seemed like a different direction for him, so this was a must see for me.

First, the only problem I had with the film is the screenplay, some contrived lines, especially in the third act, stick out. The dialogue really tries to force the theme down the viewers throat. Other than that, everything else was top notch. The way the story is set up and fleshed out was engrossing to me. I like a film that lets the viewer figure it out for themselves. It's got a classic mystery set up, where the viewer is in the shoes of the protagonist, we get to figure it out along with him as he unravels it.

Clive Owen and Naomi Watts were decent, but not really stretching there acting legs here. The cinematography and locations were beautiful, filmed in a neo-noirish blue/grey color palette with lots of wide angle shots of the characters dwarfed by the urban architecture. The shootout was very well done and more realistic and grittier than the usual action set piece.

It actually reminded me of a Michael Mann film.

The International (2009)

We can't expect every Tom Tykwer film to be as inventive or intense as Run Lola Run or The Princess and the Warrior, and The International feels almost like a breather, an intentional turn at a conventional film. It's an espionage and high stakes international drama with guns and deceit and a pair of very distinctly good good guys played by Clive Owen (brilliantly) and Naomi Watts (unconvincingly...probably just miscast). And overall it's completely enjoyable and slick, well paced, and beautifully filmed, of course.

The plot is one of those sprawling, behind-the-scenes conspiracy, third world, big money scenarios that must have shades of truth, or lots of truth, but gets simplified into a handful of bad guys and a parade of exotic locales (including the inevitable Third World warlord who is an intelligent and willing pawn in the whole game). What I mean is, the plot almost doesn't matter in the details, though it's interesting, and makes you think and worry a little about the world we live in. It's more how the heroes unfold the facts of the plot, against the odds, the clock ticking, that make the movie good. If you liked the Bourne movies (which are as a whole probably faster and more edgy) or Syriana (which is actually kind of similar in feel overall, Clooney substituted for Owen), this will really suit you.

And there is a Tykwer twist now and then, a camera with unusual fluidity, or a scene that gets replayed and rethought. Of course, the hugely complicated shootout in the Guggenheim is a masterpiece of excessive and brilliant kinetic filming. For an amazing short video on the building of the sets for this shoot (yes, it wasn't at the real Gug), go to www.firstshowing.net and type guggenheim tykwer.

In all? The best of it is worth the worst of it. A tightly made and not overly preposterous dip into a well stocked pond.

"The International" is about an evil bank and begs the question; do these fricken things come in any other way? It's a fairly interesting story that got a major boost from current events last September once we learned that banks actually do have shadier dealings than expected. Only the ironic part now is will people be willing or even able to pay to see this movie. My recommendation would be wait for the DVD. Director Tim Tykwer ("Run Lola Run") does a decent directing job and for a while "The International" crackles with suspense but soon the interesting idea posed by the script, by Eric Singer, just fizzles out.

Clive Owen plays Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent whose been trailing the business practices of one of the biggest banks in the world, the IBBC, for what seems like years. Just when he manages to find witnesses, they either end up dead or manipulated into silence. He teams up with Manhattan District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) to bring the bank to justice but she's getting added pressure to shut this whole investigation down because the two are coming up with next to no evidence. The bank's trail of money, used for everything from arms deals to murder, sends Salinger and Whitman globe-trotting from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul but one dead end could shut the case down for good.

I'm usually not very cognizant of camera shots so the fact that i'm saying Tykwer really makes you think about perfect camera movement and angles really says a lot for what he does here. Not only does he start the suspense up early with strong verbal encounters/hard stares between characters but the way he frames and pans along the beautiful design of places like the Guggenheim Museum and the IBBC headquarters or the ancient buildings, narrow, bustling streets, and rooftops of Instanbul is fantastic. Nearly every scene has a lively visual quality. His one mistake actually comes with the movie's one big action sequence. It's a bloody shootout inside the Guggenheim but it just seems messy and hard to make out, a Paul Greengrass imitation without the exciting energy of a "Bourne" movie.

The screenplay by Singer is more than partly to blame. His story starts out well, catching our attention with the bank's deceptive and shady practices and building up a healthy dose of paranoia as well. The problem is the screenplay then lets itself off far too easily. Instead of focusing on how the bank creates slaves-to-debt and how the whole process works, the movie just vaguely and complicatedly brushes over those issues in favor of lazy, generic plotting. Salinger and Whitman soon find that their best option is pinning a murder on IBBC, just you would think a major bank could do better than hiring such an easily track-able killer. And where the movie really goes wrong is the conclusion, which doesn't go into how the bank is actually taken down as much as it just satisfies the audience's need for bloodlust. You can tell that no one knew how to end this thing.

Casting Clive Owen is a good idea. He brings a determined, serious demeanor to Salinger though with the type of roles he has played recently, you wonder why this guy turned down James Bond. He seems like a natural for it. The rest of the cast struggles with poor character development. Naomi Watts gets a role so useless that it could have easily been played by my grandma. Armin Mueller Stahl shows up as a former communist whose lost his way and now works with the bank as a consultant or something. He gets one well written scene, going man-o-e-man-o with Owen but otherwise not that many impressions are made by the cast. Unfortunately for the movie, try as Tykwer and Owen might, it also fails to make much of an impression as well.