Movie Review "The International" : the suspense, the concept & the scare...

“The International” is a movie that brings into visuals what we have heard/theorized/surmised and yeah feared. The great part is the ending is a concoction of realism and cinematic realism. It’s an “only in a movie” emotion with a “that makes sense” emotion. There are solid performances from Clive Owen (Louis Salinger, an Interpol detective) and Brian O’Byrne (the hired contract killer). The others have chipped in well at various points of the movie.

The movie starts with a cold killing of Louis’ Interpol partner after a meeting with an insider. This insider happens to be a key cog of a mega bank IBBC. The IBBC is the focus of the Interpol investigation, with suspicions centering on the true intentions, ideals and asset managements of the bank. The Interpol with its nosy detective Louis Salinger tries to pry open the veil of the bank, that seems to be no different than the corner Credit Union bank down the street.

As the movie rolls on, events unfold that seemed to cast the IBBC bank in less than flattering company, in terms of their association and their involvement and intentions in events that are momentous and mostly dangerous. Louis and his superior Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) seem to be on an impossible pursuit. Armed with truck loads of money, assets that stretch across the continents, contacts that range from the local lieutenant to the Italian presidential hopeful, the banks tentacles seem to ensnarl almost anyone that it comes across. The director tries well to depict the bank as a well run mafia organization only globally more influential and well funded.

The movie has its share of stereotypical events, incidents that make the hunter become the hunted, as agent Salinger comes to the realization he might be fighting a hopeless cause. Agent Salinger tries his best to follow the trail and pickup any bits of information that he can get his hand on, but as pressure to curtail his investigation increases Salinger does some unconventional things to get more evidence. I think the highlight of the movie is the contract killer of the IBBC doing his psychotic acts and being very suave in getting away from them, only to finally become the hunted by the IBBC. The scene that ensues with Salinger trying to protect the contract killer he came to arrest from the IBBC is well executed.

Though Salinger loses his fight to get anything out of the contract killer, with the help of his buddies in the NYPD, he tracks down the killer’s contact and he is lead on the trail of IBBC’s chairman Jonas Skarssen. How Salinger confronts Skarssen and what ensues is the rest of the movie. What I liked about the movie is that they have played on the fears of the common man, “Can we really trust anyone?”. While there are holes in some of the theories in the movie, the whole product as such is palatable. Ever since Matrix resonated with the audience with its array of fear instigating concepts and its overall idea of the helplessness of our existence, movies of such ilk have tried to recreate fear to the best they can.

The International, has a good theory, but I am afraid it doesn’t do enough to scare you, it doesn’t do enough to make you think “you know what… that’s out of the box”. Too often you come across good concepts not treated well, while I wont call this movie as a bad effort, I do think that it’s a bad end product. The climax highlights the helplessness, even for agent Salinger, where he only ends up with the satisfaction of shooting down the messenger of IBBC and not the IBBC itself. I liked that ending, only I have a problem with how this could have been handled better. The audience could have been scared a little bit better, a solid effort but an average end result for “The International”. I would give a D+ and recommend waiting for the movie to be on the “tele” or “blockbuster”.

Zooming out of Gloom... hopefully

When 2008 was about to roll in, the numerology department was working overtime... the significance of the total 2+0+0+8 had them in a dizzy... its a great year or so they said... 12 months later... don't we all think 2008 as one of the most dramatic, impact-ful, draining, eye-opening, gut-wrenching times of most living beings' lifetime.. from the economy that was in a tailspin and the violence that wouldn't stop around the world and the melting glaciers and the deficit in most countries' budget and the increase in hunger deaths and the loss of jobs and the rise in crimes and the .... too many bad headlines...

10 years from now - when, hopefully we are out of this crisis - we will recall 2008 as the year that had too many bad headlines, the year that doomed many a savings account, the year where we started saving on fast food, electricity, gas and anything that can be saved... History will equate 2008 with 1931 the most comparable and deadly ogre of a cousin.... the great depression... History will by then have all things we did wrong in 19 titles on newsstands, of what we should learn, what we missed and how to avoid... and someone will make money on it too...

Human race... we are funny... we commit the mistake , we avoid the reactions, we sidestep the repercussions until it hits us in the face, we smart from it because we have no other choice, some try and stand up, like water off a duck's back we march on and commit the next series of blunders...

2008 was not all that bad... in fact 2008 was the ugly bill for all the sins of 2001 to 2007, the sins also called as failed policies, missed warning signs and general lack of concern for the future... 2008 was the ugly product of all that was wrong in the previous years... 2008 was needed, it was important the human race gets hit on the face with reality.... its a splash of cold water...

No one needs a million dollar home, no one needs a 4 bedroom home, no one needs 3 cars, no one needs 2 cellphones... but almost everyone wants them all and thats how we ended up with 2008... if we only keep paying the interest on a loan the primary never disappears, if we only look 2 days ahead in our life, the deadlines in the next week never shows up early, if we remain short sighted with a head bigger than the stomach we all only deserve 2008...

No one knows which one policy will take us out of this rut and deliver us to the next one... we are all as excited as can be... for what did we get from 2008 that we cant let go off ... other than a pile of bills, a rack of empty headache bottles, a few broken glasses that bore the brunt of our anger as the stock indexes went for a swim-dive.... its a fallacy to expect one policy to be the silver bullet a series of policies are necessary ..

As individuals we need to step up and distinguish our needs from our wants... in times like these we don't need what we want... we should want what we need... the more we realize the difference and cater to our needs... the better we are all off...

Can 2009 be as bad as 2008, well who knows... but every individual can command what happens with them, as more individuals get smart... with a concerted effort to keep ourselves better prepared we will sail through it... and we can even live to describe it to the next generation... of how we learnt WANT, NEED, GREED, PURPOSE and PERSPECTIVE from the year 2008.... Happy New Year