Ten years after his breathless pop masterpiece Run Lola Run, German director Tom Tykwer is still sending his actors racing through densely populated cityscapes. But in Tykwer's new big budget thriller, Clive Owen and Naomi Watts aren't running in the service of metaphysical mind games. Globe-spanning conspiracies must be stopped. The International couldn't be any more timely; its shadowy power brokers and villainous bankers could have slinked out of the day's headlines.
As Interpol detective Louis Salinger, Clive Owen reprises a variation of his lovable underdog role in Children of Men: harried, beaten down, and supremely paranoid -- which doesn't mean that they're not really after him. "Them," in this case, is the IBBC, an international bank run by Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen) that kills with impunity and is under investigation by the New York district attorney's office, represented by Naomi Watts. From Berlin to Lyon, Milan, New York, and Istanbul, international intrigue leads Owen and Watts on the trace of a nameless assassin (Brian F. O'Byrne) and his handler, played with pinched authority by the great Armin Mueller-Stahl.
Berlin was a central character in Run Lola Run, and Tykwer continues to make fantastic use of his settings. In The International, the architecture is as much a star as Owen and Watts: sleek glass palaces, postmodern company headquarters, and stately museums represent the institutions that metaphorically and literally dwarf the humans that live in their shadows. Swift investigations alter with elaborate set pieces in Milan and a staggering climax at the New York Guggenheim, a furious explosion of violence and excitement that ranks among the most exhilarating sequences I've seen in a long time.
Clive Owens in 'The International'
Sony PicturesOverall though, The International's mood owes more to tough, downbeat seventies thrillers like The French Connection than Bourne-style continent-hopping excuses for action. In our current economic climate, it's noteworthy that a disillusioned communist hardliner speaks the film's central thesis, a particularly cynical assessment of capitalism's grip on the world. To Tykwer's credit, The International's stays faithful to its worldview and sees the premise through to its uncomfortable conclusion.
The International (2009)
Starring: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen, Brian O ByrneDirected by: Tom Tykwer
Produced by: Alan G. Glazer, Ryan Kavanaugh, Chuck Roven
Running Time: 1 hr. 58 min.
Release Date: February 13th, 2009 (wide)
MPAA Rating: R for some sequences of violence and language.
Distributors: Sony Pictures Releasing
