The International (2009 film)

Louis Salinger, an Interpol detective, and Eleanor Whitman, an Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan, are assigned to investigate the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC), which funds criminal activities such as money laundering, terrorism, arms trading, and the destabilization of governments. Salinger's and Whitman's investigation takes them to Milan, where the IBBC assassinates Umberto Calvini, an arms manufacturer and Italian prime ministerial candidate. The assassin diverts suspicion to a local assassin with political connections, who is then promptly killed by a corrupt policeman. Salinger and Whitman get a lead on the second assassin, but the policeman confronts the two and orders them out of the country. At the airport, they are able to check the security camera footage for clues on the whereabouts of the bank's assassin, and follow a suspect to New York City.

In New York, Salinger and Whitman are met by two New York Police Department (NYPD) detectives, Iggy Ornelas and Bernie Ward, who have a photograph of the assassin's face. Salinger, Ornelas, and Ward locate Dr. Isaacson to whose practice the assassin's leg brace has been traced, and they are able to follow him to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Jonas Skarssen, the chairman of the IBBC, reveals to his superiors White and Wexler that Calvini was killed so that they could have his sons buy missile guidance systems in which the bank has invested. Since the bank knows that Salinger and Whitman are close to finding their assassin, they send a team of hitmen to kill him, while Wexler is arrested by Ornelas. As Salinger and Ward speak to the assassin and attempt to arrest him, a shootout at the Guggenheim erupts when a number of gunmen attack them. Ward is killed in the chaos, and Salinger is forced to team up with the assassin to fight off the gunmen. However, the assassin is mortally wounded during their escape and dies of his injuries.

When Salinger goes to interrogate Wexler, he reveals that the IBBC is practically untouchable due to its connections to terrorist organizations, drug cartels, governments, and powerful corporations, though Wexler indicates a willingness to help Salinger take down the IBBC. Meanwhile, Salinger persuades Whitman to let him continue alone.

In Italy, Salinger tells Calvini's sons of the IBBC's responsibility for their father's murder, prompting them to cancel the deal with the bank and order White to be killed. Salinger then accompanies Wexler to Istanbul, where Skarssen is buying the guidance systems from their only other manufacturer, Ahmet Sunay. Salinger attempts to record the conversation so that he can obstruct the deal by proving to the buyers that the missiles will be useless, but he ultimately fails. Both Wexler and Skarssen are then killed by a hitman contracted by the Calvinis to avenge their father's murder. Salinger is left stunned, his investigation, pursuit, and determination to bring down the IBBC having led to nothing.

Afterwards, the bank successfully continues its operations despite the death of Skarssen, as he had predicted to Salinger before he was killed. However, with the new and more aggressive chairman, the IBBC's increased expansion and aggression ultimately lead to greater scrutiny, leading to a United States Senate investigation headed by Whitman.

The screenplay was written by Eric Warren Singer after he developed an interest in the banking scandals from the 1980s and 90s, he was looking for "a paranoid thriller vibe" from that period; "The Godfather III was really the only film up to this point that dealt with the banking scandals, because it was really gangster warfare on a corporate level, and I thought that was the best part of the film."[8] Later reviewers compared it directly to The Parallax View (1974) and All The President's Men (1976).[9] A year later Tom Tykwer got involved through his agent, but decided a contemporary setting would work better.[8] In April 2007, Clive Owen agreed to perform in The International. He said the script interested him because he was reminded of "those '70s paranoia pictures" and because it combined a factual, intelligent basis with an international thriller plot.[10] The following July, actress Naomi Watts was cast opposite Owen.[11] In August, the film received US$5.4 million from the German Federal Film Fund toward its budget.[12] The following month its funding increased to $7.9 million, based on the board's assessment that two-thirds of The International would be produced in Germany and that a number of Germans were in important roles, such as actors Armin Mueller-Stahl and Axel Milberg, cinematographer Frank Griebe, and production designer Uli Hanisch.[13] Filming began in Berlin on 10 September 2007.[14] Part of the production took place in Babelsberg Studios.[15]

Clive Owen called the shoot-out scene "one of the most exquisitely executed sequences I've been involved in".[10] Tom Tykwer planned the scene in detail and toured the museum with the principals months in advance. The lobby entrance scene was filmed in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, but for the shooting sequences a 118-foot (36 m) wide, life-size replica, including an audio visual exhibition with works of Julian Rosefeldt, was built in Germany.[16] This set was too large for the studio, so it was instead built in a disused locomotive warehouse outside Berlin; its construction took ten weeks.[17] Having filmed in the real museum interior and on the sound stage in Germany, the film crew had to track the lights and camera angles carefully throughout to ensure continuity. The scene includes a sequence in which the protagonist sends a huge art-chandelier hanging from the ceiling crashing to the ground; the entire stunt was created using computer generated imagery.[18]

Clive Owen, discussing the film's relevance, said it "ultimately does ask questions about whether banks use people's money appropriately, and if they're completely sound institutions."[10] More boldly put, Philip French, reviewing the film in The Observer, surmised the sentiment as "Let's kill all the bankers", a modern-day version of Dick the Butcher's "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers", from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II.[19] Salinger's (Owen) central revelation is that the world is governed by anonymous forces, staffed by disposable individuals. The powerlessness of the ordinary citizen is symbolised by the huge, impersonal buildings that the villains inhabit.[19]

The film draws on a number of macabre incidents from international banking: the Bank of Credit and Commerce International crisis in 1991; the murder of Roberto Calvi, an alleged banker to the Sicilian Mafia, in London in 1982; and the assassination by poisoning of Georgi Markov in London, in 1978. The bank is making large loans to rogue states and simultaneously acting as their munitions broker. The script offers the chilling insight that the creditors are the real winners of any conflict.[20][21] A.O. Scott commented on the opportunity to make a film critical of international finance, "that multinational weapons manufacturers can be portrayed as more decent, civic-minded and principled than global financiers surely says something about the state of the world."[22]

• Official website
• The International at AllMovie
• The International at Box Office Mojo
• The International at IMDb
• The International at Metacritic
• The International at Rotten Tomatoes