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Reviews Counted:191
Fresh:111
Rotten:80
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: The International boasts some electric action sequences and picturesque locales, but is undone by its preposterous plot.
Theatrical Release:Feb 13, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $25,450,527
Synopsis: Released in a post-globalization economy teetering on the brink of a depression, THE INTERNATIONAL admirably stays in step with its time. Screenwriter Eric Singer hangs this man-against-the-machine... [More]
Starring: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Brian F. O'Byrne
Director: Tom Tykwer
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As an action thriller The International might well lack the full-on fight scenes of a Bourne movie, but it is a smart and sophisticated globetrotting thriller with just the right villain for these troubled times.
Paranoia abounds in this slick but stodgy drama recalling the conspiracy thrillers so beloved of 1970s cinemagoers.
Message to Clive Owen: Daniel Craig filled the James Bond vacancy a while back and is doing a great job, so you really should stop auditioning for the role.
The action is often crass, the location-hopping mere crisis tourism. But the acting and dialogue deliver.
It's reasonably efficient, passably entertaining, and strenuously playing catch-up with the Bourne movies: flat-footed Owen doesn't look as good as Matt Damon sprinting through city streets, and the editing doesn't match Paul Greengrass's whiplash pace.
Overlong and underwritten, this corporate-noir thriller is propelled by its gleaming good looks.
The title of the sleekly professional The International sounds off-puttingly more like a corporate hotel than a thriller and the first half proves just as blandly businesslike.
Though The International starts decently enough, its flailing action set-pieces and dialogue such as “sometimes a man can meet his destiny on the road he took to avoid it” drag it down to a very pedestrian level.
The International would love to be the new Michael Clayton but it’s nowhere near smart enough. It also fancies its chances as the new Taken but it just doesn’t have the guts.
The film seems to unfurl at a pace that by modern standards could be described as leisurely, and yet that works in its favour, even though it also allows us more time to contemplate some of the script's more implausible elements.
The whole indeed proves to be greater than the parts thanks to Tykwer's direction.
An action flick with smarts, but that's not to say the brain and the brawn always coexist easily.
Now that "banker" is a term of abuse, more offensive than any word it rhymes with, Tom Tykwer's film is extremely timely. It has the hard-edged efficiency of The Odessa File - and a sequel would be most welcome.
The International has its fair share of dodgy moments, but these are more than compensated for by an amusingly topical plot, some stunning photography and a thrilling shoot-out sequence.
The film goes off to a sort of sluggish start, and its ending just goes on and on. But in the middle is one of the most astonishingly awesome action sequences in recent cinematic history.
Killer banks may be new to the movies, but there's nothing else original in this if-it's-Tuesday-this-must-be-Istanbul thriller, with its portentous globe-hopping and racing through colorful street bazaars.
Top Critica relatively engaging, if not terribly convincing, variant on the evil corporation thriller
Despite a preposterous shootout at the Guggenheim and the puzzling presence of an unneeded Naomi Watts, Clive Owen carries this ultimately action-filled thriller.
A bankrupt thriller.
After a gripping opening scene, The International often shudders to a halt trying to explain its convoluted plot.
March 22, 2009:
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February 16, 2009:
Perhaps a perverse variation of The Peter Principle comes into play, here, since Tom Twyker appears to be over his head helming a Hollywood blockbuster as opposed to a modest, art house indie.
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February 14, 2009:
The Naomi Watts International Interview: On sleepless nights, lactose lobotomies and almost kissing scenes
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February 12, 2009:
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This week at the movies, we've got creepy campers (Friday the 13th, starring Jared Padalecki and Danielle Panabaker), conspicuous consumption (Confessions of a Shopaholic,... More...
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