The International

Whoever had this one in their release schedule must have just about died of
ecstacy when the credit crunch hit. "Everyone hates bankers now? I've got a
movie here where the bad guys are bankers! Squee!" And to be honest, that's the
only reason I can imagine why this didn't go straight to video.

There's this bank, and they do bad things. They fund evil regimes, they launder
money for the mafia. It's a testament to the pre-credit-crunch origins of this
film that they felt the need to give us this kind of an excuse to call the
banks baddies. Nowadays, we're all "they're bankers, they're bastards, no need
to sugar coat it for us, we're in already. Shoot the fuckers."

But yes, Clive Owen is an Interpol agent who's obsessed with bringing the bank
down, since they've been wriggling off the hook for years. Naomi Watts is...
well, she's with the Manhattan DA's office, like that makes any difference.

And the whole thing just collapses into a big wet messy heap of a thriller,
with no discernable direction, purpose or conclusion. We spend most of the film
trying to track down some hitman, which goes nowhere, and leaves us wondering
why quite so much of the time and budget of the movie was spent establishing
his character, tracking him down, and messily exploding the Guggenheim museum
if he plays no useful part in the plot.

The film does have one saving grace, and that's that it looks good. In that we
get to see a lot of nice European cities, and the location shooting is good
enough that it feels like a much classier Euro-thriller than it actually is.

6/10, but really, why bother?