Directed by: Tom Tykwer
Written By: Eric Singer
Cast: Clive Owen & Naomi Watts
Runtime: 118 min.
Rating: R
Trailer

It is often said that the most difficult part of writing an effective screenplay is figuring out the structure, or spine, of the narrative. It doesn’t necessarily determine whether the film will be any good or not, but it ensures clarity of narrative that keeps the film from derailing halfway through. For Tom Tykwer’s latest film, The International, clarity of narrative is the one thing it doesn’t have going for it. Deemed a political thriller, the film stars Clive Owen as an Interpol agent named Louis Salinger who is hell-bent on bringing down a corrupt German bank that is financing the sale of weapons to volatile countries.

Apparently, this bank wants to control the debt. I don’t know what this means, despite having extended sequences of bankers, politicians and lawyers all talk about it. That’s what The International does a lot of: talk. Screenwriting axioms number two: show, don’t tell; a rule The International breaks consistently. Owen’s character is teamed up with Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), a New York District Attorney, and together they globetrot from one exotic city to the next. Sure, the locations are pretty but the filmmakers give the characters little to do when they get there except to stand (or sit) around and talk about what they should be doing. The pacing is so off that it feels like a train that’s starting and stopping, sputtering its way to the finish. A satisfying time at the movies this isn’t. After an Italian politician tells us, in one of the film’s longest scene of exposition, that the bank plans on selling arms to control debt, he is assassinated, which increases the stakes for our would-be heroes but fails to speed up the film’s sluggish pacing.

As if the filmmakers sensed their leading stars were bored, Owens and Watts are given the task of investigating the assassination to determine the number of shooters, but the scene fails as it comes off as an afterthought – added into the film after everyone involved realized their leading stars had nothing to do but emote. The one saving grace of The International is an extended and surprisingly violent shootout inside Manhattan’s Guggenheim Museum. The shootout is well constructed, if unrealistically excessive, but boy is it ever welcome to a film that was dying a slow death. Unfortunately, after this thrilling sequence, Tykwer and his team squander their good fortune and fall back to the crawl that hampered its first half, building to a third-act climax that’s about as exciting as waiting for the bank to open. It’s too bad. Owens and Watts have an engaging screen presence and are solid actors. They deserve better material than this.

Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009