"Sometimes you find your destiny on the road you took to avoid it." - Louis Salinger
Art imitates life in the tight thriller The International by talented director Tom Tykwer (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Paris, je t'aime). An original screenplay by screenwriter Eric Singer, the title refers to the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC), a mighty global bank involved in illicit activities and corruption, purportedly patterned after real corporations, the Permindex Trade Organization of Canada and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International of Pakistan.
Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is a scruffy Interpol guy whose partner gets killed in the middle of their investigation of the IBBC. He gets help from his American counterpart Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), who allows him to get as close to the truth as possible, putting her own life on the line. The pair jetset all over the world in pursuit of characters who could help them take down the impenetrable IBBC. But the truth gets more difficult to swallow when they realize how deeply infected the whole system has already become, threatening to take not just the guilty down.
Tykwer employs his trademark crisp visuals to tell what could have been a very complicated story really well. Owen's performance is just right, and while Watts' is, too, I couldn't help but be distracted by how young and fresh she looked to be playing her character. The rest of the supporting cast deliver the chills, and so do the memorable action sequences, particularly the one in the Guggenheim Museum and the piazza in Milan.
Art imitates life in the tight thriller The International by talented director Tom Tykwer (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Paris, je t'aime). An original screenplay by screenwriter Eric Singer, the title refers to the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC), a mighty global bank involved in illicit activities and corruption, purportedly patterned after real corporations, the Permindex Trade Organization of Canada and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International of Pakistan.
Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is a scruffy Interpol guy whose partner gets killed in the middle of their investigation of the IBBC. He gets help from his American counterpart Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), who allows him to get as close to the truth as possible, putting her own life on the line. The pair jetset all over the world in pursuit of characters who could help them take down the impenetrable IBBC. But the truth gets more difficult to swallow when they realize how deeply infected the whole system has already become, threatening to take not just the guilty down.
Tykwer employs his trademark crisp visuals to tell what could have been a very complicated story really well. Owen's performance is just right, and while Watts' is, too, I couldn't help but be distracted by how young and fresh she looked to be playing her character. The rest of the supporting cast deliver the chills, and so do the memorable action sequences, particularly the one in the Guggenheim Museum and the piazza in Milan.