Overall Impression – Clive Owen proves you CAN have fun in a museum!
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
Who’s your main character? – Louis Salinger.
What’s he trying to accomplish? – Expose the illegal activities of one of the world’s most powerful banks, the IBBC, and bring it to justice.
Who’s trying to stop him? – The IBBC, and the higher-ups at Interpol who don’t want Salinger pursuing the case.
What happens if he fails? – The bank will continue selling arms to third world countries, facilitating coups to win the next governments’ financial allegiance.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
Orphan – Interpol agent Louis Salinger believes IBBC was involved in his partner’s mysterious death. However, he finds himself operating alone as his superiors warn him off the case.
Wanderer – Salinger teams up with assistant D. A. Eleanor Whitman, and they learn that his partner was murdered. Salinger tries and fails to interrogate IBBC’s CEO, discovers that the bank has been bugging his house, and uncovers a money trail of arms deals that takes him and Whitman to Milan.
Warrior – Salinger and Whitman witness a political assassination, and track the assassin to New York. With help from the NYPD, Salinger finds the assassin and his ‘handler’ in the Guggenheim. However, IBBC wants to end its contract with the assassin and sends in its goons. The assassin is killed, but Salinger escapes with the handler and uses him to find an arms deal about to go down with IBBC’s CEO. Salinger plans to get an audio recording for evidence, but he’s discovered…
Martyr — Salinger chases the CEO with a gun. However, killing him is useless: another corrupt banker will merely replace him. Salinger understands that he’ll only be serving his revenge, so he lets the CEO live…
AND, IN THE END…
THE INTERNATIONAL has a lot going for it, but a weak Orphan element made it difficult for me to be pulled into the movie. (At the risk of making myself sound simple, I also found the plot a bit of a chore to follow.)
That being said, THE INTERNATIONAL features some cool detective work, and one of the best shoot-outs I’ve seen in a while. It’s staged inside the spiraling Guggenheim museum, but was shot on a super-realistic set.
It’s hard not to entertain the thought of Clive as James Bond… but that’s a different reality.
– Dan Pilditch
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