The International – Blu-Ray Review

At the moment within banks across the world being scrutinised due to their gross mismanagement this film would always garner a little more interest than just a standard film of this genre, however we need to look back into the late 1980’s/early 90’s for the inspiration around this particular film. This being BCCI (Bank of Credit & Commerce International) which, if you read the entry in Wikipedia, seems to draw more than just a slight resemblance to the fictional IBBC as portrayed in “The International”.

Whereas banks these days are being investigated due to bad management and excessive bonuses the IBBC seems to have gone several steps further by getting involved in arms dealing, be that supplying African rebels with small arms, or supplying both Palestinians AND the Israelis with weapons all the way up to purchasing missile systems and assassination.

Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and his partner are close to exposing the IBBC by meeting with a high ranking executive from the bank however things get awry when Salinger’s partner is killed in front of him via mysterious means. With the stakes now personal he teams with assistant district attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) and together they try and get enough evidence against the bank in order to expose what it does.

“The International” is a competent thriller rather than an action film; it was originally geared to be a period piece set in the late 70s early 80s however after some heated discussion that idea was forgotten and due in no small part to the current banking crises they made it a  contemporary film, one that could even be accused of being a little slow in places with the one best action scene taking place inside the Guggenheim Museum in New York towards the later half of the film, (which was actually a massive recreation of the museum that was set up in Germany) however the toned down nature struck me as being more realistic and that for me was a welcoming change to the “blow everything up” rule that permeates this genre.

This is helped in no small part by the male lead, Clive Owen. Owen is an actor that I have always felt was on the brink of doing great things, and he has indeed been in some pretty good movies; a while ago I even thought that he would make a good James Bond before Daniel Craig took that and made it his own. But here he seems to be in his element as a tough Interpol agent who is out to do well, but is frustrated at almost every turn. he fleshes out his character with a suggestion of some haunted past which he brings into the character just enough to make you think that those events still plague him.

Naomi Watts as DA Eleanor Whitman seems to have been shoehorned in so that we have a pretty, blonde female in scene, that isn’t to say she didn’t bring anything to the role at all because she did and she did compliment Owen well, but I always felt she was there for the look on the screen rather than any necessity for the story indeed it states in the extras that the character was originally going to be a man, which would have been a guy too many in the movie, so I am glad that they kept with a female in the end.

For the bad guys the three standouts for me were Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen), Wilhelm Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and the Consultant (Brian F. O’Byrne). Skarssen comes across as every inch the CEO of a large bank, but also as someone that makes those tough decisions without the experience of having been the one carrying those decisions out, he comes across as all business and quite ruthless when in the comfort of his large, state of the art HQ in Luxemburg but reveals his true self when caught outside of a comfortable (for him) situation.

Mueller-Stahl strikes me as a ruthless man, although someone that was not always that way, he gives a speech in the film to indicate (to me) that he was pushed by others into being the man that he was today, and that he would have been a good man had he been able to control events, this off course is just what I took from it, you may think something else entirely.

Lastly I liked the whole idea of the consultant played by Brian F. O’Byrne whom is essentially an assassin. He looks totally non descript and yet is quite deadly and it certainly made me think that there must be so many people around that look so harmless and yet are not what they seem be it on your train or walking to work, even in your workplace. although saying that he is non descript is not 100% true as there is something you find out about him during the film that would make him a person who is not that inconspicuous, but from a normal person in street giving a casual look he is non-descript.

Overall I liked the film, the main male lead very good in the whole and all the supporting actors were believable from corporate lawyers through to New York detectives. There are some good set piece action sequences that hold up well, the best of which was set in the Guggenheim and it is all about bad bankers who are people we all love to hate at the moment.
7/10

Audio:
The score adds real atmosphere to the movie, giving it a sense of dread in the places where it is needed, I played this via 5.1 Dolby Digital and thought it very good, there was a nice balance between fronts and rears with lots of effects being heard through the surrounds. The dialogue was clear and when needed the bass was punchy and clean.
8/10

Visual:
I found the visuals to be stunning, the pictures when in the cities seems to take on a gun metal, tungsten look which sets itself off brilliantly against the architecture that is portrayed, and again when out in Istanbul the sandy look of everything lends a fantastic contrast to what we have seen before, I just wish that I had a Blu-Ray capable drive in the computer so that the screen shots could show the superb clarity of everything.
10/10

Special Features:
There are a number of extras including the almost obligatory commentary, but I think the ones that stand out are the making of and shooting at the Guggenheim. If you do manage to sit through all the extras then you will see that the same material crops up in certain parts. I also found the commentary to be quite taxing to listen to.
7/10

Overall:
An above average thriller, with stunning visuals and a decent audio track the special features seem comprehensive enough although they do repeat in places
7/10

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Reviewers set up:
32” Sony Bravia
Harman Kardon AVR7300 through KEF Q Series Speakers
PS3 via HDMI Connection (Video) and Optical connection via the AMP (Audio)