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The International
Review by Nathan Weinbender

I wonder what Alfred Hitchcock would have thought of “The International.” I can imagine him admiring the cinematography, greatly appreciating the orchestration of a handful of scenes and then furiously taking notes on how he could have made it a better picture.

How could Hitchcock have improved the film? For one, he wouldn’t have broken the momentum of the plot by having its characters sit around and explain it to us. He also wouldn’t have denied his characters an emotional entry point, so that the audience doesn’t care about who lives or dies. And he wouldn’t have made the villain, in this case a powerful bank, a complete non-entity.

The movie opens as Clive Owen, an agent for Interpol, investigates the mysterious death of his partner. The coroner says it’s a heart attack, but Owen is convinced it’s murder. After all, they had just recently discovered that the International Bank of Business and Credit is a hub for organized crime, and Owen believes the bank wants him dead.

Naomi Watts, who plays an assistant to the New York District Attorney, is along for the ride, looking forever solemn in yet another role that does nothing to accentuate her talents. (Has she ever played a role that didn’t require her to be humiliated, distressed or violated? I can’t think of one—in this film, she’s run over by a car.)

They uncover numerous conspiracies within the bank, bodies pile up around them and the plot works its way through tapped phones, foot chases, tumult at political rallies and second shooter theories. The movie effortlessly hops from Berlin to Milan, from Luxembourg to New York City, and finally to Istanbul, and it all plays like a fairly stiff collaboration between John Grisham and John Le Carré, with hints of Costa-Gavras and “Accounting for Dummies.”

Tom Tykwer is the director, and I’ve admired his previous work: “The Princess and the Warrior” and “Heaven” were sad and beautiful, and his masterpiece “Run Lola Run” had a kinetic energy that this film so desperately needs. He has a nice eye for visuals, and although it’s refreshing to see a thriller that makes cinematography a priority (there’s no indiscernible shaky-cam photography here, which is a welcome change), it’s unacceptable that the film is as dry as it is.

To give you an idea of the screenplay’s strange construction, consider the brilliantly-staged shootout set in the Guggenheim. It’s a great action set piece and would have made a superb climax, but it’s placed somewhere in the middle of the film so that it’s followed by more than half an hour of rambling, talky material. Talk about a buzz kill.

For an action picture, “The International” is surprisingly inert, a lot of long-winded exposition and leaden plotting interspersed by the occasional moment of excitement. There are twinges of brilliance here and there, mainly due to Tykwer’s impeccable sense of style, but the script, by first-timer Eric Warren Singer, really should have been Hitchcock approved.

Directed by Tom Tykwer. Written by Eric Warren Singer. Starring Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen and Brian F. O’Byrne. R; 118m.