So I gave myself a treat tonight and saw a sneak preview of The International, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, which opens this Friday. Since this is an early review, let me say "spoilers ahead!"
I put this film on my top 30 to see this year based on the strength of its premise and trailer. Given it's plot about a corrupt bank, it also has the fortune(?) of coming out at a time when most people don't think too highly of economic establishments.
For the first three quarters of this movie, I was really digging it. It does a great job of building suspense by making this European bank, the IBBC, a nefarious organization. It appears that they won't let anything get in their way of global domination and they provide plenty of scenes to make the audience believe that. Not only do you worry for the main characters' safety but you also want to see this bank get taken down.
Trying to stop them is Lou Sallinger (Owen) who's been trying to build a case against the IBBC for years. Owen turns in another one of those glowering performances that he can only do, but in this case it works. Helping Sallinger out is Watts, who plays a New York FBI agent. Her role is actually kind of underwritten and seems frivolous at times. It seems a shame to waste some as talented as her in a thankless role like this.
As Sallinger gets closer and closer to exposing this organization, the tension builds. Unfortunately, the film climaxes too soon. The best moment of the film comes from an unbelieveable shootout scene done in the Guggenheim museum. This is pure unadulterated action that just keeps building in awesomeness. Having this bloody battle done with the backdrop of this pristine setting just makes for a really cool scene. I don't want to gush, but the scene is so great, it's almost worth the price of admission alone.
Like I said though, once that scene is over, the film limps to a finish. A major factor in this is that they wrote themselves into a corner. As Sallinger interrogates one of IBBC key players, he says that it's impossible to truly take the bank down. Their reach is so wide that there would be too many people invested in seeing the company thrive to let anyone expose it for what it's really doing. Now this statement in of itself is fine. The film had clearly established the strength of the bank throughout the film, so what he says is plausible. But if we're to buy into that, then there isn't a whole lot you can do to create a satisfying ending.
At that point, they either have to create some deux ex machina that would seem phony or you have to create a more philosophical finish where you have to accept moral victories over actual ones. And while neither of those options seems appealing, what this film does is even worse. They try finding a happy medium between those two options. The end result is a befuddling and anti-climatic finish. As the movie ends, you're left with too many loose ends that you want answers to. The film tries to answer these in a cheesy newspaper montage as the credits roll, but by that point it's too late.
Overall, while the film seems somewhat relevant given what's currently going on with our financial institutions, you also get the sense that this movie has been sitting on the shelf for a while. In fact, doing a little reading on the film, it seems that the film did some reshoots in order to bolster up the action. If any of the Guggenheim stuff was added late in the process, I shudder to think what this movie was like before it.
One final thing I will say though is that this movie is beautifully shot. Scenes are shot across the globe and are beautifully done. If aesthetics is something you enjoy in the film, well then this one has got it going on.
In the end, I'm going to give this the mildest of recommendations. The film was able to build up enough goodwill that it's unsatisfying ending didn't completely ruin anything. It's not at Cast Away level, but you will be disappointed with the film's finish. Still if you're looking for something to see at the cineplex, this is a decent alternative to all of the romantic comedy dreck that's being shoveled out there right now. Grade: B-
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