"This is the very essence of the banking industry... to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals... slaves to debt."
Words of wisdom. Uttered by a man in high places, a man who has inside knowledge of the machinations of big financial institutions... Soon after uttering these words, the man, an Italian presidential candidate dies. He is assassinated in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of people, while giving a speech.
He is not the first casualty in the movie The International. And he won't be the last...
The first casualty takes places five minutes into the movie - right in front of the eyes of the lead protagonist. And the movie never looses its grip from that point on...
The lead protagonist mentioned above is one Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent, who is assisting Eleanor Whitman, an Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan, in investigating money laundering and malpractice done by the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC). But they lose their lead witness, and the death toll rises, and soon they realize that they are up against a very formidable foe. A big international corporation with access to virtually unlimited funds wields power enough to twist any evidence, make witnesses disappear and "buy" friends at the highest places. As they try to uncover more and more evidence, their investigation keeps hitting inaccessible walls. Will they succeed in pinning down the corrupt bank and its unscrupulous officials?
The well-edited story moves at a break-neck pace. The action and the chase sequences are very well-executed. Kudos to the director and the photography crew for depicting some pretty cool action scenes. Instead of the shaky blurred camerawork used to depict intense action, they employ well placed cameras and aerial views to depict much of the actions scenes, making them look quite elegant. The shootout scene that takes place within the Guggenheim museum, (though preposterous) is especially breath-taking. (It is claimed that they built a life-size replica of the actual museum for this.) The film does not flinch from showing blood and violence wherever necessary. The story threatens to take a decidedly vigilante turn at the end, but fortunately wraps up well. The climax is unexpected but realistic, though its a bit of a letdown after the pretty impressive built-up of the entire story...
The basic premise of the story may sound a bit preposterous, but the related Wikipedia article claims that "the film draws on a number of macabre incidents from international banking". It successfully depicts the ugly underbelly of the big financial corporations and how they manipulate governments, facts and situations to suit their own needs.
Some of the dialogues are quite well-scripted. One of my most favourites is this one: "We cannot control the things Life does to us. They are done before you know it, and once they are done... they make you do other things... until at last, everything comes between you... and the man you wanted to be."
Clive Owen plays the disillusioned, disgruntled protagonist quite well - especially with his impassive face, vacant eyes and his almost perpetual part-confused, part-contemptuous expression (Though his acting is not really that good, such roles do suit him quite well I think). Others have acted okay too. Most of the characters a shallow and two-dimensional, but they suit the story well. Any attempt to sketch the characters further would have made this essentially action flick cumbersome and slow. But there is one character I found most interesting - that of an antagonist - a former stasi colonel named Wexler, who has been depicted pretty nicely, and well-performed by the German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl.
There are some negative reviews for this movie, some of which claim that it "is undone by its preposterous plot"... I find that statement preposterous. For the film's plot is certainly less preposterous than so many other commercial action movies out there that receive such great accolades from the reviewers... And I do agree, that to a certain extent, certain aspects of the plot are a bit preposterous. (For instance the sequence where Whitman slips Salinger out of police custody undetected is utterly naive) Yet, the real value of this movie lies in its attempt to convey the idea that it is not the politicians, the world leaders, the governments and armies that move the world. It is the big financial corporations, working silently at the backstage, that unscrupulously manipulate the world we live in - for their own benefit... This does sound a bit farfetched and paranoid. But then, it is after all merely a work of fiction, isn't it?...
There is one more dialogue in the movie which I liked a lot: "This is the difference between truth and fiction... Fiction has to make sense."... Hmm, I wonder...
Words of wisdom. Uttered by a man in high places, a man who has inside knowledge of the machinations of big financial institutions... Soon after uttering these words, the man, an Italian presidential candidate dies. He is assassinated in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of people, while giving a speech.
He is not the first casualty in the movie The International. And he won't be the last...
The first casualty takes places five minutes into the movie - right in front of the eyes of the lead protagonist. And the movie never looses its grip from that point on...
The lead protagonist mentioned above is one Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent, who is assisting Eleanor Whitman, an Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan, in investigating money laundering and malpractice done by the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC). But they lose their lead witness, and the death toll rises, and soon they realize that they are up against a very formidable foe. A big international corporation with access to virtually unlimited funds wields power enough to twist any evidence, make witnesses disappear and "buy" friends at the highest places. As they try to uncover more and more evidence, their investigation keeps hitting inaccessible walls. Will they succeed in pinning down the corrupt bank and its unscrupulous officials?
The well-edited story moves at a break-neck pace. The action and the chase sequences are very well-executed. Kudos to the director and the photography crew for depicting some pretty cool action scenes. Instead of the shaky blurred camerawork used to depict intense action, they employ well placed cameras and aerial views to depict much of the actions scenes, making them look quite elegant. The shootout scene that takes place within the Guggenheim museum, (though preposterous) is especially breath-taking. (It is claimed that they built a life-size replica of the actual museum for this.) The film does not flinch from showing blood and violence wherever necessary. The story threatens to take a decidedly vigilante turn at the end, but fortunately wraps up well. The climax is unexpected but realistic, though its a bit of a letdown after the pretty impressive built-up of the entire story...
The basic premise of the story may sound a bit preposterous, but the related Wikipedia article claims that "the film draws on a number of macabre incidents from international banking". It successfully depicts the ugly underbelly of the big financial corporations and how they manipulate governments, facts and situations to suit their own needs.
Some of the dialogues are quite well-scripted. One of my most favourites is this one: "We cannot control the things Life does to us. They are done before you know it, and once they are done... they make you do other things... until at last, everything comes between you... and the man you wanted to be."
Clive Owen plays the disillusioned, disgruntled protagonist quite well - especially with his impassive face, vacant eyes and his almost perpetual part-confused, part-contemptuous expression (Though his acting is not really that good, such roles do suit him quite well I think). Others have acted okay too. Most of the characters a shallow and two-dimensional, but they suit the story well. Any attempt to sketch the characters further would have made this essentially action flick cumbersome and slow. But there is one character I found most interesting - that of an antagonist - a former stasi colonel named Wexler, who has been depicted pretty nicely, and well-performed by the German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl.
There are some negative reviews for this movie, some of which claim that it "is undone by its preposterous plot"... I find that statement preposterous. For the film's plot is certainly less preposterous than so many other commercial action movies out there that receive such great accolades from the reviewers... And I do agree, that to a certain extent, certain aspects of the plot are a bit preposterous. (For instance the sequence where Whitman slips Salinger out of police custody undetected is utterly naive) Yet, the real value of this movie lies in its attempt to convey the idea that it is not the politicians, the world leaders, the governments and armies that move the world. It is the big financial corporations, working silently at the backstage, that unscrupulously manipulate the world we live in - for their own benefit... This does sound a bit farfetched and paranoid. But then, it is after all merely a work of fiction, isn't it?...
There is one more dialogue in the movie which I liked a lot: "This is the difference between truth and fiction... Fiction has to make sense."... Hmm, I wonder...
My Ratings: 3
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