![]() |
Clive Owen and Naomi Watts are lost in the high-pressure world of big finance in The International |
Director: Tom Twyker
Cast: Clive Owen (Louis Salinger), Naomi Watts (Eleanor
Whitman), Armin Mueller-Stahl (Wilhelm Wexler), Ulrich Thomsen (Jonas Skarssen),
Brian F. O’Byrne (The Consultant), James Rebhorn (New York DA), Michel Voletti
(Viktor Haas), Patrick Baladi (Martin White), Jay Villiers (Francis Ehames),
Fabrice Scott (Nicolai Yeshinski), Haluk Bilginer (Ahmet Sunay), Luca
Barbareschi (Umberto Calvini), Alessandro Fabrizi (Inspector Alberto Cerutti),
Felix Solix (Detective Iggy Ornelas), Jack McGee (Detective Bernie Ward), Ben
Whishaw (Rene Antall), Lucian Msamati (General Motomba)
Welcome to another of my unlikely pleasures. I remember
seeing The International because we
took a punt on it with an Orange Wednesday 2-for-1. I had no real expectations,
but I was totally wrapped up in it. It has an old-school 1970s
Hollywood-conspiracy-thriller feel. I keep waiting for it to be rediscovered
(I’m waiting in vain it seems). But it’s a wonderful, tense little thriller
which – by focusing on the shady, morally corrupt dealings of private banks –
always seems relevant. Throw in alongside that a truly stand-out action
set-piece at the centre of the film and you have a much overlooked pleasure.
Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is a scruffy Interpol agent,
with a reputation for getting too involved in his cases. Working with Assistant
New York DA Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), Salinger is investing possible
illegal arms deals involving private investment bank IBBC. After their inside
contact and Whitman’s fellow DA are both murdered in quick succession, Salinger
takes the battle directly to IBBC. But the bank, chaired by ruthlessly blank
businessman Jonas Skarsson (Ulrich Thomsen), is prepared to go to increasingly
violent lengths to protect its interests, with assassinations arranged by its
in-house security expert ex-Stasi agent Wilhelm Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl)
and carried out by his mysterious Consultant (Brian F. O’Byrne).
Tom Twyker shoots the film in cool grays and drained out
colours, giving it a very cold palette fitting for its exploration of the
ruthless viciousness of big business. Twyker uses the cold, modern architecture
of the various businesses the film is set in to great effect, making a
wonderful, imposing backdrop. The camera constantly allows this domineering
modern architecture to fill the frame, and mixes it up with some well-chosen
aerial shots that reduces the action to cogs in a machine. It’s a very
distinctive visual film – and it’s not until it finishes that you realise (apart
from blood) you’ve really seen a red, a green or a purple in the whole film.
There’s no jittery editing or hand-held camerawork – it’s got a smooth old-school
cinematic quality to it.
The plot is a chilling conspiracy thriller, that (within the
confines of a Hollywood action thriller) gets really in-deep into the workings
of big finance. Critics accused it of being a light-weight Jason Bourne but really it’s more of a colder Parallax View. It largely eschews action in favour of paranoia,
investigation and simmering tension. It’s a well-constructed journey down the
rabbit hole, as Salinger gets both closer towards answers, and further away
from bringing anyone to justice.
Clive Owen’s rumpled performance is perfect. Far from being
a “Bond audition”, Salinger is an outsider, a man who lives for his job, who
wears his heart on his sleeve, and spends large chunks of the film either terrified
or out-of-his-depth. Practically the first thing that happens to him is being knocked
out by the wing-mirror of a truck. His grubby, unshaven scruffiness doesn’t
recover from that. Owen gives the performance both a moral conviction and a
slight air of desperation and bewilderment, as if he can’t quite understand why
others aren’t as wrapped up in his case as he is.
He’s part of a great cast of actors – the film is full of
unusual choices and rewarding cameos. Armin Mueller-Stahl mastered playing
these world-weary ex-spies years ago, but delivers here. Broadway star Brian F
O’Byrne is great, as a ruthlessly efficient hitman. Ulrich Thomsen is rather good
as the blank businessman and family man, who seems to see no moral issues in
the conduct of his bank’s business. Interesting actors like Patrick Baladi,
James Rebhorn, Luca Barbaeschi, Haluk Bilginer and Lucian Msamati round out the
cast with terrific cameos – there is always a unique actor and dynamic
performance around every corner.
The plot of the film doesn’t unfold the way you expect it to
– and mixes hope with a nihilistic powerlessness. Twyker’s directing is
professional and he adds a lot of intelligence to a standard Hollywood set-up.
He also throws in a few moments where the film pauses to reassess things we’ve
seen before or to allow Salinger to puzzle out another crucial clue.
And it’s fitting for a film so in love with overwhelming
power of modernist architecture that its most explosive sequence takes place in
New York’s Guggenheim museum. This is a gut-wrenchingly exciting, destructive
gun battle that serves as the pivot point. Brilliantly shot and edited, and
perfectly built towards, it explodes into the film and grabs your attention.
Owen again is perfect for this sequence – determined, but terrified and
completely out of his depth – and Twyker’s use of the Guggenheim is masterful.
Honestly it’s one of the best shoot-out scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie: five
minutes of brilliance. You’d remember the film for that scene alone, if for
nothing else.
Okay it’s not a perfect film by any stretch. Poor Naomi
Watts has a thankless, ill-formed part. I’m pleased the film doesn’t include
any romantic connection between the two characters at all, but (despite her
work on the case) Whitman seems more a plot device than a character. The script
largely fails to serve up too many memorable lines – and its main strengths are
to present familiar actions and events in a fresh manner. Some have found the
plot momentum to often flag – and there is something to that – and the overall schemes
of the bank are not always completely clear.
But, nevertheless, I really like The International. It’s got a classic old-school feel to it. Its views
on the immorality of big business feel very true, as does its presentation of
the villain as basically a monolithic institution – the actual guys running the
bank seem irrelevant, it’s just the ongoing nature of business. And in this
world of corporations, where destroying a few men don’t admit to a hill of
beans, how can truth and justice ever win out? Even if it had nothing else,
tackling that idea makes The
International feel like something new and worth revisiting. Well that, and
that Guggenheim gun fight…
No comments:
Post a comment