Clive Owen Can Kick Your Bank’s Ass, ‘The International’ Review

by Josh Roth @ 8:50 pm February 16th, 2009

The International, starring Clive Owen as a renegade Interpol agent, had some very misleading, and frankly awful trailers and ads. Tom Tykwer, who directed the bizarre, stylized, German action film Run, Lola, Run, added some much needed style to the decent script, and Clive Owen brought his typical brooding bad-assery. As it turns out, The International isn’t as mediocre or ‘Hollywood’ as the ads made it out to be. It’s actually a pretty compelling action/thriller with moments of serious greatness (there’s a shootout in the Guggenheim, and damn is it incredible).Up until the big ol’ shootout in the Guggenheim though, it’s just decent, and after the shootout returns to just being decent. But man, that shootout makes up for it. Seriously, go and see the movie just for that scene. It has everything you’d want from any half decent action movie crammed into one break neck speed action sequence, with Clive Owen at his most awesome.

Endings are always hard in movies, how do you wrap up a whole bunch of story-lines to the audience’s satisfaction in a pretty limited amount of time? The International does something a bit different, the last half hour or so is entirely dedicated to neatly wrapping up the story. I respect the idea, but it just feels like it drags on towards the end.

Oh, and just to mention her, Naomi Watts was quite good. She didn’t bring much action to the scene, but her more human emotions were good contrasted against Clive Owne’s Cylon-ness.

Any movie that has a bank as its villain is bound to run into a few problems isn’t it? The International isn’t the magnum opus of action/thriller movies, there are a few bumps along the way, but in the end you’ll have enjoyed the trip. If you’ve got the time and the cash, and want to see more than a few people’s bodies get riddled with bullets, go and check out The International.