this clever mash-up. If you liked Clive Owen in the aforementioned apocalypticon then stick a high-voltage chocolate bar in your pantaloons and go see The International soonest.The cinematography is great. The pace is deliberate. The sound is very good and no dialog is lost to random machine noises, as there is not much talking in the amazing shoot-out sequence at the art museum.There is a legitimate criticism that has been made about this film, which is that Naomi Watts -- who is very talented and very beautiful -- does NOT have enough to do in a very mission-critical role. That is really just about all the criticism I have read, that I can agree with ....The plot is excellent. It is easy to follow even if it is highbrow.The story proceeds logically. No heavy lifting involved, mentally speaking, and most of the dots do get connected by the end of the show.Bankers handle money, money is about labor, and labor is about the work of our lives. If you cannot grasp those connections then just be happy in knowing that The International is fun to watch. If you can grasp those connections, then you are going to enjoy this film just like a starving man enjoys a full plate of hot cornbread sopping with butter and honey. Cold milk for the drink is optional.

direction at all. All of the characters had realistic motivation and thats enough for me as far as that goes. that and some of the shoot outs really were intense, I just loved it!

will most likely appeal more to European audiences than American and may be found lacking by those seeking just a pure action film.But for others.... brilliant - best since a long time.

with things that big budget thriller films almost never dare to touch.This film does just that type of thing. It presents, as the villain, an institution that is pervasive in the world and most peoples lives. We deal with it almost everyday and we need to as it holds one of the things that we need everyday - money. From an observer viewpoint on this type of relationship it is easy to see which side has great power over the other and like all power, this one can also be abused. Perhaps this plot can turn people off since they refuse to believe that something that they trust with literally everything they've got, could be so untrustworthy. Or perhaps they've never seen or heard about such a thing before so therefore it can't be true. Either way, it is self-imposed mental limitation which will doom someone to eventually liking only one type of movie and/or story. Movies and stories, at their core, are presenting new ideas and patterns and The International doesn't do that with spectacular action scenes, but with it's fresh plot.Crooks usually rob banks, but who gets robbed if the bank is the crook? That is the film's central question and the answer provided is also a bit more complex than could be expected. The path the answer doesn't always move at a breakneck pace nor are many of the answers provided fully satisfactory.In addition to the winding plot the film features a spectacular shootout that results in a world class art museum getting trashed. It's a bit of the old action movie formula that almost never gets old, but overall the movie is an Anti-Formula to the every Hollywood Action Movie Formula. --- 9/10BsCDb Classification: 13+ --- violence

set-piece is a classic. Owen's one-note performance is perfect for his role as an obsessed interpol agent.

very weak. His boss at Interpol wants to play politics and just investigate to turn things over to local authorities.That forces Salinger to take matters into his own hand. Eleanor comes along for the ride every once in a while. In the meantime me meet the Board of the bank and find out what they are all about: wanting to become the main arms broker in the world facilitating armed conflict everywhere. A new Italian prime minister is to be elected. Italy aims to buy weapons through this bank. The weapons are all cheap weapons from China. When our team interviews the politician, he tells them that the bank is not interested in weapons or politics. It is interested in controlling debt. Moments later he is shot.The shooting itself is not as simple as it seems. There are multiple shooters, multiple bullets, and fabricated evidence. Our team gets on the trail of the second shooter and follow him to New York. A spectacular shootout scene takes place in a museum as the bank realized the shooter has been compromised. The shooter went to meet one of the banks directors, played my Armin Mueller-Stahl, and who will end up in custody. Under interrogation he agrees to work with Salinger to bring the bank down.This takes them to Turkey where the final showdown between Salinger and the main bank executive takes place.This movie is very good. It is nicely shot in Germany, Italy, France, US, Turkey. The story works very well, except for two forced coincidences. Some very interesting things are said about banking, wars, power; things that resonate today as the world is awash in debt and wars. The shootout scene is just awesome, right up there with Michael Mann's shootouts. One weak point are the performances by Owen, who just stands there looking dumb most of the time, and Watts, who surprisingly adds nothing to her character. The exception is Mueller-Stahl whose toned downed and dignified acting makes for an excellent character of a tired old former communist colonel.Overall, a highly recommended thriller that shines both as an action movie and as a thoughtful drama about the corrupt international weapons/banking/politics industrial complex.

supporting actors were, for the most part, strong and gritty. There was probably pressure for a female lead, so in Noami Watts's defense, this is probably part of the reason why the character feels so irrelevant.I'm happy anytime that a slick international thriller has some brains and isn't completely predictable, so I found the picture highly entertaining, if imperfect. It it flawed? Most certainly. But if you walk into the theater without pretensions, you'll probably be as entertained as I was. And I do think a theater visit is warranted, for the photography mentioned by previous reviewers, if not for the Guggenheim scene alone. I think it's dangerous to trump up a scene too much, because it inevitably leads to disappointment. But having no idea about what was coming... suffice to say, I didn't find the directing anything other than thrilling.

got a classic mystery set up, where the viewer is in the shoes of the protagonist, we get to figure it out along with him as he unravels it.Clive Owen and Naomi Watts were decent, but not really stretching there acting legs here. The cinematography and locations were beautiful, filmed in a neo-noirish blue/grey color palette with lots of wide angle shots of the characters dwarfed by the urban architecture. The shootout was very well done and more realistic and grittier than the usual action set piece.It actually reminded me of a Michael Mann film.

great shoot-out where the surprises and action keep you on the edge of your seat without trying to overwhelm with gore and jerky camera work.Go see it, you'll enjoy it.