{"id":4554,"date":"2009-07-28T06:02:52","date_gmt":"2009-07-27T22:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=4554"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:23:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:23:15","slug":"the-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/07\/28\/the-international\/","title":{"rendered":"The International"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"blog-international-01\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/bloginternational01.jpg\" alt=\"blog-international-01\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" \/> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0963178\/\">The International<\/a><\/em> (2009) &#8211; on rental. Clive Owen is starting to present an almost unchanging look in all his most recent films: outside his role of the dandy in <em>Elizabeth: The Golden Age<\/em>, he looks unwashed, unshaven, unsmiling and like he hasn\u2019t slept in days.<\/p>\n<p>I really enjoyed his <em>Shoot \u2018em Up<\/em> from 2 years ago, so was wondering if this film was going to be anything similar. Funnily, it\u2019s anything but. The film is a thriller, and apart from a long gun battle scene in New York\u2019s <a title=\"Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Solomon_R._Guggenheim_Museum\">Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum<\/a> late in the movie, is pretty light on violence but heavy on plot.<\/p>\n<p>Owen is an Interpol agent on a life mission to expose the criminal activities of one international and large bank inspired by the real but now defunct <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bank_of_Credit_and_Commerce_International\">Bank of Credit and Commerce International<\/a>. Assisting him is Naomi Watts (loved her in <em>King Kong<\/em> and <em>The Painted Veil<\/em>), who plays a Manhattan-based Assistant DA. The bank in this film is involved in arms trading and terrorist funding, and is also in the practice of assassinating witnesses and investigators who get on its trail.<\/p>\n<p>The film at times feels like it has an identity crisis about wanting to be either a Bourne or a Bond film. Our duo travels all across Europe, including Berlin, Istanbul, Italy and Luxembourg as they try to piece together clues at crime scenes, and reach key figures willing to testify or turn against the all powerful bank.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve got mixed feelings about <em>The International<\/em>. The on location scenes or of their likeness are nicely done-up, especially the long scene at the Guggenheim Museum. But while the story\u2019s semi-intelligent, the plot turns are all unfortunately too obvious. There\u2019s no surprise when a couple of characters who\u2019re obviously key to the investigation get off, nor when one of the bank\u2019s key figures finally turns against the establishment. The film gets all the ticks in the checklist. Corrupt cops? Check. Super-cool sniper assassin? Check. Evil boss dressed in a suit? Check.<\/p>\n<p>On balance, it\u2019s an average watch I think, though you\u2019re not especially missing anything if you give this one a pass.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/star.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/star.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/star.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/blankstar.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/blankstar.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The International (2009) &#8211; on rental. Clive Owen is starting to present an almost unchanging look in all his most recent films: outside his role of the dandy in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, he looks unwashed, unshaven, unsmiling and like<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-read-more\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/07\/28\/the-international\/\">Read More<span class=\"cleanwp-sr-only\">  The International<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-entertainment","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}