Smart and dumb
‘The International’ is both Inspired and insipid
By Lisa Miller 02/19/2009
The burden of bringing down widespread corruption is placed squarely on the shoulders of Clive Owen’s Interpol agent, Louis Salinger. Filmed in jaw-dropping locations such as a shimmery downtown Luxembourg, sidewalks crisscrossing Istanbul rooftops, and throughout the Big Apple’s Guggenheim Museum, the film earns an “A” for inspired set pieces, a “B” for its enigmatic hero and a “C” for a premise making less sense as the film first wears — then drags — on.
Though inspired by an actual bank (in a Third World country) that funded terrorists during the 1960s and ’70s, the notion of such a bank existing in the Western world, and killing with impunity anyone standing inside it, seems like a stretch. Unless, that is, you’re inclined to believe in widespread conspiracies. Then it’s even more difficult to reconcile the notion of a fix preventing prosecution of these lawbreakers anywhere.
Armin Mueller-Stahl is wasted as Wilhelm Wexler, a bank executive whose conscience has become increasingly heavy with the passing years. Naomi Watts, playing a Manhattan assistant district attorney, could be reprising her role from “The Ring Two” as she stumbles doggedly from one disconcerting moment to the next — all while biting her lower lip. Owen is perhaps one of the few actors capable of shaping a credible character defined only as a man who does what he believes is right — damn the consequences.
Among the film’s pleasures is tracing the delicate links followed by investigators tracking the bank’s deal-makers and assassins. Though we gasp at exquisitely realistic action sequences, during each pause we contemplate an unfolding conspiracy that qualifies as the world’s best-kept secret. Perhaps in a small country — ruled by dictatorship — such a secret might survive a season.
But the beauty, and perhaps the weakness, of democracy is that grandiose secrets have the half-life of a catnap.
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