Review of The International (2009) by Chads. — 14 Feb 2009

The son knows exactly how daddy is able to outfit the family in a lap of luxury. He isn't sent out of the room when Jonas(Ulrich Thomsen) conducts his questionable business dealings with multi-national bank associates over the video phone.

The call had interrupted their game, in which the IBBC CEO was teaching young Cassian, through metaphorical means, the nuts and bolts of amoral banking practices. After the transmission is completed, Jonas asks his son for advice, as a test of the lesson he just imparted over their loaded game.

The boy's answer indicates that the protege has learned his lessons well. The rich are different. More domestic scenes like this one, in which the filmmaker explicates on the mentality of the unaccountably rich, would have been more welcome than the genre-required ones which only shows the mechanics of this moral disorder that the corporate suits are seemingly afflicted with these days.

As a result, "The International" has clarity issues pertaining to the specifics of the bank's commercial indiscretions. By the time Louis(Clive Owen) tracks his man down on the Turkish rooftops, most viewers will only have an abstract sense of Jonas' transgression.

It's hard to muster up any animosity for a character that's somewhat underwritten. This filmmaker, previously known for art house fare such as "Lola rennt", and "Der Kreiger und die Kaiserin", finds the perfect metaphor for his crossover into commercial filmmaking, by staging an action set-piece in the Guggenheim Museum, where he proceeds to make mincemeat out of art(as does Hollywood).