THE INTERNATIONAL

Directed by Tom Tykwer
Written by Eric Singer
Stars: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl

German born filmmaker Tom Tykwer is a relative late-comer to the U.S studio system, his previous feature Perfume: the Story of a Murderer, boldly attempted to make a film about the sense of smell, with predictably unsuccessful results. Tykwer is a gifted filmmaker, as was evidenced in his kinetic hit Run Lola Run, but his style constantly threatens to overwhelm any narrative substance he turns his hand to.
His latest effort sees him trying his hand at a conspiracy thriller, with mixed results.

Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) obsessively works to destroy the International Bank of Business and Credit and bring its chief executives to justice. Aided by New York Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) Salinger travels to Berlin, Istanbul and New York in an effort to track the bank’s dodgy transactions and in the hope that he can secure a whistleblower who might be able to provide concrete evidence of the company’s illegal activities, planned from within a shadowy cabal at the centre of the bank’s operations.

Owing a cinematic debt to 70’s conspiracy thrillers such as the films of Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor) and Alan J. Pakula (The Parallax View), the tepid script doesn’t quite live up to Tykwer’s taut direction. Absent character development means there’s few characters to care about and Owen straps his ‘unshaven-half asleep-deeply embittered-pom’ schtick on for one more performance, still managing to hold the audience and provide at least a semblance of intensity amidst the action. A violent shoot-out staged inside the foyer of New York’s Guggenheim museum is a highlight but with little to pull the viewer in, the enjoyment is more in the technical execution rather than emotional investment.