“The International” wants to be taken seriously as a thriller of our times with a message. Unfortunately the time it really reflects is a decade past. The movie is all about a big evil bank doing big evil things and why it remains impervious to justice.
Anyone who has seen the superior “Lord of War” will be familiar with this movie’s message. Anyone familiar with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) will be readily familiar with the plot of this movie. The International of the movie isn’t even a thinly veiled version of the notorious bank as it is chartered in the same country and has the same corporate initials but in a slightly different order.
The movie has as many changes of international venue as a “James Bond” movie and its leads don’t get much to work with. It’s a financial thriller in the first act, becomes a detective shoot-em-up in the second act and ends as a bad revenge-actioner-want-to-be in the final act. None of it works very well. The shoot-out in the Guggenheim Museum of Art is particularly jarring and seems to have been shoe-horned in at the behest of some studio “suit.”
The twin themes of the movie are that power belongs to those who control the world’s debt, and that entities like The International that provide the world powers with a service will continue to go about their business and remain beyond the long arm of the law. Both are powerful themes. Neither are served well by this film.
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