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The International |  | Director: Tom Tykwer
Actors: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen, Brian F. O'Byrne
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.94
Buy New: $11.99
as of 3/10/2010 16:51 CST details
You Save: $7.95 (40%)
New (54) from $4.87
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  66 reviews
Sales Rank: 3622
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), Cantonese (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 118 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 23904
UPC: 043396239043
EAN: 0043396239043
ASIN: B001V7UTV6
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
Release Date: June 9, 2009
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
AN OBSESSIVE INTERPOL AGENT WHO SPEARHEADS AN INVESTIGATION INTO ONE OF THE WORLDS MOST HIGH-PROFILE AND POWERFUL BANKING INSTITUTIONS IN AN ATTEMPT TO EXPOSE THEM FOR WORLDWIDE ARMS BROKERING, CORRUPTION AND MURDER.
Amazon.com
The International is actually two movies in one: A highbrow thriller about a sprawling bank that resorts to murder and arms sales to retain its power, and a sleek visual essay on how architecture and interior design shapes your perceptions. Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen, still not quite a star despite Inside Man and Children of Men) has been on the brink of conclusive evidence against the villainous international bank, but his sources always end up dead. With the aid of a Manhattan district attorney (Naomi Watts in a woefully underwritten part), he stumbles on the trail of the bank's favorite hit man, who might provide the (literally) smoking gun Louis needs. The International starts out smooth and silky, with visual style to burn and Owen's intense fervor. The plot gradually bogs down in incoherent moralizing, but along the way there are some taut sequences, including a bloody shootout in the Guggenheim Museum where alliances shift unexpectedly. But what makes The International worth seeing is director Tom Tykwer's astute eye for public space: Chic postmodern buildings, broad Italian plazas, Turkish rooftops like mountain paths--Tykwer orchestrates actors through these architectural shapes, his hypnotic visual sense creating far more tension and excitement than the plot. Also featuring Armin Mueller-Stahl (Eastern Promises) and Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration) as malevolent Europeans. --Bret Fetzer
Stills from The International (click for larger image)
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 Non original....if the original part its dumb! February 26, 2010
Nicolas (Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
This movie is really one of the most poor scripted of the last years' blockbusters.
So many pointless scenes, and the end must be one of the most stupid I ever saw!!
Without giving *spoilers* too much...half of the movie characters were talking about compromise their life and soul to destroy the badguys, cos the "legal ways" are uneffective!...and what happen in the LAST milisecond, before Owen is about to compromise (or not) his soul to get the job done??? You will not believe it!! Someone comes from behind, and kills the bad guy!!
Anyone who watched at least 5 or 10 movies of this gender, will instantly recognize lots of stolen scenes, to create some exitism for the viewer, but totally not adding anything to the story.Those are just for you to have 1 or 2 minutes of over-exitement, and thats it, so you dont get bored.
Also, the main characters have developing problems, you dont have idea of what kind of relation owen and watts have (friends?, sis-bro kinda?, lovers? (no way), is owen horny for watts?, watts wants owen but cant betray her husb?? WHAT??...or they are just two robots walking through life??). And whats up with Owen's headaches?? why the noise??...it has no explanation so we are supposed to believe he starts to hear that noise when his blood pressure is going for the clowds?? Its too much "screentime" for something that in the end its just a replacement for owen screaming and kicking cos of his anger!
Please dont make me waste time with the bad guys! Cannot say anything good about them, they were cut from a cardboard! A bad guy having an existencialist issue right after he gets captured and help the bad ones??
In resume, you dont need to waste your time with this movie, its like a bad cliche, and since they dont want to have all borrowed from other movies, they have some "original" parts, but since those dont fit, no problem!, just use some buggers and glue it! That hard is the connection you will have in this movie plot.
IBBC...BCCI...could there possibly be a connection? February 14, 2010
e. verrillo (williamsburg, ma)
The details of the Iran/Contra/BCCI scandal of the 1980's have finally come to Hollywood's attention. And only 20 years behind the times! (That has to be a new record. Usually it's at least three decades before Hollywood catches up.) In both the movie and in reality, the BCCI (or IBBC, if you'd rather) was an international bank that laundered money for CIA "black ops", i.e. the funding of Osama bin Laden, Noriega, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, etc. Individuals associated with the bank included the Bush family, Henry Kissinger and the other movers and shakers behind the "little wars" of the Reagan era. John Kerry was the man who busted the bank, not with bullets, of course, but with subpoenas. (Reality is less juicy than fiction.)
So, to "juice it up" Hollywood turned the BCCI scandal into an action/thriller flick. To a certain degree they were successful. Clive Owen was, as always, edgy and intense. There was a nice shoot-out in the Guggenheim and a Bourne-style rooftop chase. But, as the banker said in the end, "If you shoot me, there will be a hundred more just like me." (I'm paraphrasing.) Needless to say, the banker was right. And, as other characters pointed out, the business of banks is debt--through which we are all enslaved, nation and individual alike. So, there was really no reason for the IBBC to sell arms or to assassinate anybody, which made most of the action in this action film entirely nonsensical. If the banks are already financing arms deals via the CIA, the US Dept of Agriculture (crops are always a good front), and everybody else under the sun, why bother? Besides, who are you supposed to root for in this film--an international police agency, or an international policing agency?
To quote the great American philosopher, Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and they are us." I'll just leave it at that...
 Nice Adult Financial Thriller January 30, 2010
A. Blatt (Detroit Lakes, MN USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I saw this one in the theatre and liked it enough to purchase on dvd. You pretty much have to be a fan of the genre to like it. The locations are great throughout the movie. The acting is decent. It can get a bit confusing at times. The shootout is great. Overall, a better than average movie of it's type.
a nice throwback to an earlier type of spy film January 21, 2010
Roland E. Zwick (Valencia, Ca USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
***1/2
Those in the market for a solid, old-fashioned spy thriller need look no further than "The International," a movie that harkens back, in tone and style, to those post-Bond Harry Palmer films ("The Ipcress File," "Funeral in Berlin") from the 1960s. Here, Clive Owen plays Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent who's teamed up with Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), an assistant district attorney of the city of New York, to help bring down a major bank they suspect of brokering arms to terrorists. When one of his fellow agents is assassinated, Salinger sprints into action, even though, technically, he has no real authority to apprehend the bad guys.
Complex, serious and swarming with red herrings, "The International" is one of those movies where they throw terms like "file" and "dossier" around with gleeful abandon - and we relish every minute of it. In addition, it comes replete with all the shady characters, covert encounters and glamorous international settings (Berlin, Lyon, Istanbul, etc.) we've come to expect in our secret agent thrillers.
Excellent action sequences, including a spectacular shootout at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, add to the movie`s effectiveness.
Did you ever watch a movie and really, and I mean really, want to like it? January 18, 2010
Andrew Wood
Did you ever watch a movie and really, and I mean really, want to like it? "The International" is just such a film. I am a big Clive Owen fan, I like action and mystery, I do not like movies that are confused at their genre and full of sloppy writing however.
Things start off on an even enough keel. Clive Owen plays an Interpol Agent who watches one of his partners vomit and fall over dead after being poisoned directly following a meeting with members of the evil bank (The International Bank of Business and Credit). Owen rushes across the street to render aide to his fallen comrade and gets to the berm when he gets hit in the back of a head by the mirror of an oncoming van and gets knocked out cold on the side of the road, falling beside his partner. This is exactly how useful his character is for the rest of the film. Not at all.
Once Owen's partner is killed we're barely introduced to Noami Watts who is the New York City Assistant District Attorney. There's not really a lot of plot surrounding her or why she's involved with the case. It's more just kind of *poof*, there she is... and then she disappears for large chunks of the movie. She is supposed to be Owen's partner in the investigation but she is around for so little of it that it doesn't really feel like she belongs. The only thing she manages to do is talk on the phone a lot and get run over by a car. Movie would have flowed just fine with out her.
So let's get down to the plot, the mostly boring, outlandish, and very hard to follow plot. I don't like admitting when I can't follow a plot, I'll be honest. I feel like it's failure on my part. Maybe I wasn't watching the movie close enough or maybe I am just too stupid to get it. I don't really feel bad about missing large chunks of "The International"s plot because I blame the poor writing. But in any case Owen and Watts start to investigate the background of the evil bank. They find that people who are in charge routinely disappear and eventually that the bank is dealing in weapons and war or anything else that can make them a buck or help them manipulate the market. With that secret out in the open they decide they have to put a stop to it and the international jet setting hi jinks ensues. There's a lot of changes in local, a politician is assassinated, and we watch Clive Owen get angrier and angrier at the evil bank but in the end nothing really happens.
I think that's probably why "The International" failed. It wasn't sure if it was a mystery, a political message, or a James Bond movie. Of these three it accomplished zero. The mystery wasn't really that sound or very interesting (here's a secret, it's the evil bank!). The political message that money is evil and so are banks is kind of stupid and poorly played out. Perhaps where it failed most was it's attempt at action. Clive Owen is Mr. Action, just look at him in the "Bourne Identity" or as `The Driver' in the BMW shorts and he was a candidate to be the next James Bond! So what went wrong? Well first of all I don't know anything about Interpol, but for being like an FBI agent Owen doesn't have his own weapon, gets into several gun fights, and always has to barrow someone else's gun. It would be different if he was able to handle himself like `The Driver' and didn't need a weapon to get himself out of a jam, but he really really needs the gun. Secondly there is almost no action in the movie, someone gets capped here or there but its usually anti climactic.
This can NOT be said for the amazing Guggenheim shoot out scene however. It's action at a mile a minute! It is literally the only reason to pop this movie in your dvd player but with all the other boring-ness going on it feels terribly out of place. The only way I can think to put it in context would be to imagine hopping on the ride Pirates of the Caribbean, you're sailing along for a few moments enjoying the saucy pirates when from out of nowhere the twelve foot tall abominable snow man from Expedition Everest attacks you and before you realize what's just happened you're sailing through pirate world again. That said I can't give "The International" a very high score. I really wanted to like it, I tried really hard, but its convoluted plot, identity crises, and inconsequential characters make it just barely watchable. It gets a four from me. One point for Clive Owen (it's not really his fault the character was horrible) and three points for the spectacular Guggenheim scene, even if it was out of place.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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