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International, The
Columbia Pictures (Sony)


6.1

based on 34 reviews
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based on 30 votes
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Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R for some sequences of violence and language

Starring Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Brían F. O'Byrne

In The International, a gripping thriller, Interpol Agent Louis Salinger and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman are determined to bring to justice one of the world’s most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war. (Sony Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Eric Warren Singer
DIRECTED BY:	Tom Tykwer
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: February 6, 2009
RUNNING TIME:	118 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA \| Germany \| UK

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Clive Owen makes a semi-believable hero, not performing too many feats that are physically unlikely. As the plucky DA, Naomi Watts wisely plays up her character's legal smarts and plays down the inevitable possibility that the two of them will fall in love.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

I can promise you a fairly good thriller with mixed-bag elements: preposterous plot, smartly elegant direction, one of the worst recent performances by a major actress, and a dynamite stick of an action scene that can stand close to the greats (the car chase in "The French Connection," the single-take battle sequence in "Children of Men") and from which the movie never really recovers.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Won't go down as an action thriller for the record books, but it's a pretty good one for right now. First of all, the villain is a bank. How's that for timing?

The Hollywood Reporter Sura Wood

Punctuated with bursts of explosive energy, this is a contained, cerebral film.

NPR Bob Mondello

Tykwer being something of an architecture freak, controlling Third World debt also requires a trip to the rooftops of Istanbul, to Zaha Hadid's BMW factory, and to Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin. All great fun in a story that's more kinetic than compelling.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The compulsively watchable Owen makes for an ideal leading man of both action and angst. The film's eye-popping set piece, a shootout at the Guggenheim Museum, is an extravagantly choreographed valentine to philistines everywhere.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is a thriller where the cutting, even in most of the action sequences, is meticulous but leisurely. The elaborate set pieces are so beautifully worked out that you could take them apart, shot by shot, and fit the pieces back together like an intricate Chinese puzzle.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

For all its impressive set pieces and breathless momentum, it's neither passionate nor urgent.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

There's something almost endearingly out of sync about the sleek but now dated Euro-thriller The International.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

What it's mainly about is movie stars skittering from locale to locale while bullets whiz by and the plot thickens – or, more to the point, curdles.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The International possesses the look and feel of a thriller, but not the heart or soul of one.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Overall, though, the movie lacks the dash, wit, authority and character to become a first-class thinking-man's thriller.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

While its globe-trotting itinerary recalls the mad whirl of a "Bourne" picture, nothing about this film's style resembles the second or third "Bourne" outings (which I loved).

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Where "Run Lola Run" was like a perpetual-motion machine, The International seems to forever be stopping in its own tracks. Tykwer takes coffee breaks to explain the convoluted and dicey plot.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

An hour after seeing it, you may not remember what The International was about. But you'll certainly remember that shootout. That is something to behold.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though not as action-packed as some thrillers, The International is noteworthy for its unusually scenic and architecturally dazzling locations.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

A decent thriller that should have been dazzling, is nothing if not topical.

Time Richard Corliss

If you take Tykwer's film even half-seriously, it will be like one of those horror movies that you leave, suspecting that the crazy, ingenious super-killer is waiting for you outside. A warning, then, to the susceptible: After seeing The International, don't dare go to an ATM.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

There's a nifty shootout at the Guggenheim Museum and a lot of scenic travel, but little in it compels.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Ultimately feel so empty and forgettable.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

An action thriller with some decent action and a few thrills, but all embedded in a yarn so hopelessly tangled that even the loose threads have knots.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

I couldn't help feeling that The International was stuck in second gear, like it couldn't decide whether to be fun or meaningful and so settled for being neither.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Despite being structured in an intriguing way -- bits of confusing action are shown first and explained later -- The International never finds its footing.

TV Guide Cammila Albertson

Despite all the points it gains for furrowed brows and kick-ass gunfights, the film loses quite a few for being dry as burnt toast.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

It's almost worth seeing, though, for the incredible action set piece at the center.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Graced with well-chosen location eye candy, Tom Tykwer's biggest production to date is proficient but lacks the added tension and characterization to put it anywhere near the top tier of contempo action suspensers.

Premiere Olivia Putnal

There’s an over-abundance of dialog that can be downright boring, especially when it’s sandwiched between fast-paced car chases and all-out gun fights.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It's good enough that you forget how much better Brian De Palma could do it. The rest is a slow road to nowhere, less clunky than "The Interpreter" but bogged down by its own cynicism.

The New Yorker David Denby

There’s a big hole in the middle of the movie: the director, Tom Tykwer, and the screenwriter, Eric Warren Singer, forgot to make their two crusaders human beings.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

So undistinguished that the moments you remember best are those that you wish another, more original director had tackled.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

The International almost seems like a Monty Python spoof on spy-game thrillers in which the phrase "secret agent" is constantly replaced by "banker," resulting in lines like, "...If I die, 100 other bankers take my place."

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Remarkably dull thriller.

Village Voice Scott Foundas

Both actors (Owens and Watts) seem mildly aggrieved (and not at all convincing) at having to play characters considerably less intelligent than themselves in a movie that plays even dumber.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Motion is in copious supply -- a frenzied shootout at Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum grows interminable -- but the workings of the abstract plot are unfathomable, the characters are unpleasant and a couple of assassinations leave us as cold as the corpses.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.1 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

TDKinDallas gave it a10:
This movie was excellent! I went to the movie expecting it to be crap and was completely surprised. To me the movie was believable, suspenseful and one of the most satisfying movies I have seen lately (Slumdog probably being the last one). Did Premiere magazines Olivia Putnal see a different movie or what? Does anyone check to make sure the critics actually saw the movie because she obviously did not see this one. Fast-paced car chases??? none All-out gun fights??? one.

Leo N gave it a7:
Good film, very interesting plot but sometimes difficult to follow, definately don't watch this if you're even slightly tired.

Claudio C gave it a3:
The script is dull and full of clichés like: 'Investigator: Why do you think he is going to cooperate ? Hero: because he is seeking redemption... Wow, that is deep and convincing ! The plot is predictable, no suspense and the only action scene (at the Gugenheim) is a parody were the bad guy joins forces with the good guy against an army of even worse guys.

Dana M. gave it an8:
Don't listen to the negative reviews. This is really a pretty good movie with plenty of action. My wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Certainly better than the Bond movies and the acting was quite good overall. Owen does a nice job with his role, and the plot does make you think about the role of big banks in the world. Go see it.

P. McCarthy gave it a10:
Fabulous film...viewer must pay close attention and know a bit about international banking and global arms sales. Better than the Bond films, better than the Bournes. Gorgeous shots of some gorgeous cities.

Kim L gave it a7:
International was hell of a lot better than the last Bond movie. At last actions shots that did not make me sick from over cutting and subliminal flashes. Not a movie to rave about but better than average.

Chad S. gave it a6:
The son knows exactly how daddy is able to outfit the family in a lap of luxury. He isn't sent out of the room when Jonas(Ulrich Thomsen) conducts his questionable business dealings with multi-national bank associates over the video phone. The call had interrupted their game, in which the IBBC CEO was teaching young Cassian, through metaphorical means, the nuts and bolts of amoral banking practices. After the transmission is completed, Jonas asks his son for advice, as a test of the lesson he just imparted over their loaded game. The boy's answer indicates that the protege has learned his lessons well. The rich are different. More domestic scenes like this one, in which the filmmaker explicates on the mentality of the unaccountably rich, would have been more welcome than the genre-required ones which only shows the mechanics of this moral disorder that the corporate suits are seemingly afflicted with these days. As a result, "The International" has clarity issues pertaining to the specifics of the bank's commercial indiscretions. By the time Louis(Clive Owen) tracks his man down on the Turkish rooftops, most viewers will only have an abstract sense of Jonas' transgression. It's hard to muster up any animosity for a character that's somewhat underwritten. This filmmaker, previously known for art house fare such as "Lola rennt", and "Der Kreiger und die Kaiserin", finds the perfect metaphor for his crossover into commercial filmmaking, by staging an action set-piece in the Guggenheim Museum, where he proceeds to make mincemeat out of art(as does Hollywood).

International, The Columbia Pictures (Sony)

International, The
Columbia Pictures (Sony)