In the film The International, an arms dealer, explains to Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) assistant DA about the functioning of banks. He says, “You control the debt, you control everything”. And which inevitably makes people slaves to debt.
A rather prescient comment especially at this current economic crisis (The International was written before the credit crunch and the story is based on the BCCI scandal).
The International is scripted as a slow-burning thriller, rooted in corruption, skullduggery, low-level espionage and assassinations. Storylines that reflect real life events such as poison tipped umbrellas (this case it’s a syringe laced with poison).
Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is a dishevelled former cop who works for Interpol. He works in tandem with assistant DA Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) as both are investigating corruption, money laundering and arms dealing at the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBCC). Salinger’s colleague sets up a meet with someone who has links with IBCC. Unfortunately, as Salinger’s colleague informs him of his meet he collapses with a suspected heart attack. Salinger’s wall is covered with autopsy pictures of people assassinated who were about to spill the beans about IBCC. Salinger is dogged and determined to bring down this bank, and its head Jonas Skarssen.
There’s a lot of globe trotting around Europe, north Africa and USA. The architecture of the IBCC is an enormous glass and steel contruction which creates a alienating and intimidating powerful force, a secular house of worship where anonymous bankers call the shots, literally.
Whitman (Naomi Watts) counterbalances Salinger’s nomadic lifestyle, she has a partner and child. Though this fulfills the usual gender stereotype and traditional role where woman is nurturing (Whitman is worried about Salinger’s state of health and during a traumatic scene , touchingly, she holds his hand in an act of compassion and consideration) while Salinger is dogged in his desire to hunt these people down without care about his own state of mind. Whitman is depicted as a strong willed and determined woman but we don’t get to see as much as Salinger. The film revolves around Salinger and women are sidelined, it has a very masculine feel. But the action-adventure genre is very masculine inclined.
The film is a slow burner, and lacks pace along with character development, we never get under the skin of Salinger and what makes him tick, nor why he is so determined to bring Skarssen et al to justice. Whitman isn’t developed, she’s always one step behind Salinger. Thankfully, there wasn’t the perfunctory shag between the two leads (though I woulda been kinda keen to see Owen in the buff!), it is based on professional respect and an equality between the two.
The dialogue veered between insightful commentary to overblown melodrama. There’s a scene between Whitman and her boss that’s reminiscent to the Cruise/Nicholson ‘you-can’t-handle-the-truth’ scene, Few Good Men-esque, which is so over-the-top and disappointing. The interactions between Salinger and Whitman (though I like the literary surnames of the two protagonists) is very sparing and I don’t think the script writer doesn’t really know what to do with their relationship. The more I think about it, the more I conclude that Whitman is nothing more than a cypher. Why was she included in the film when really it is Clive Owen who is the driving force?
In saying that, the shoot-out scene at the Guggenheim Museum was spectacular and probably will end up in the annals of shoot-outs, along with thrilling stunts. It is a very basic scene, where the museum’s architecture and spiral shaped interiors are used intelligently that add so much dramatic impact. There’s a scene shot from a aerial view which shows hundreds of people running from a mass rally after an assassination, it gives an added dynamic of people reduced to ant like creatures scuttling away.
One scene that sticks with me is where Salinger interviews an old Stalinist Wilhelm Wexler who is Skarssen’s trusted adviser. Wexler talks about the ‘grey and black latitudes’ which emphasises all forms of criminality and corruption. The same can be applied to the global establishment’s excuse for the War on Terror. Nothing about moral good but about them serving their own corrupt and greedy interests.
The ending isn’t an anticlimax, and sometimes you get that with thrillers but it makes you think how Salinger’s character’s has evolved, and whether he is morally compromised. Also, whether justice is possible even when it comes to corporate capitalism, the many-headed hydra.
Overall, the film has its merits especially its message about corporate greed and corruption. It certainly rivals the James Bond franchise and gives the Bourne stories a run for their money. If the film had been better edited, and shortened along with a punchy fast paced script, character development and dialogue then I think it would have been a gripping stand-out thriller. But not bad overall.
In real life the banks don’t really need to indulge in money laundering and arms dealing when all they need to do to is go cap in hand to Alistair Darling and ask for a bailout, and get to keep their gigantic pension.
