The International Blu-ray Review

Clive Owen has certainly proven that he is a very versatile actor, capable of contributing to several different genres, and never failing to bring his own unique, fresh, charm and charisma to the mix, with such movies as the comic book action/dark comedy Shoot 'Em Up, the noir-esque Sin City, the relationship drama Closer, the period dramas Elizabeth: The Golden Age and King Arthur and the romantic dramas Duplicity and Beyond Borders. He has clearly honed his talent over the years and proven that perhaps his not being made the next Bond was actually for the best (although I would have still liked to have seen what he could have done with the character, maybe injecting a fraction more humanity into it than bulldog Daniel Craig is capable of). The prime example of his abilities as an actor - and that not being Bond was worth the sacrifice/loss - was with his performance in the seminal Children of Men, where his 'hero' never once even picked up a gun. However, when I heard that he was starring as a globe-trotting, gun-toting, lone warrior Interpol Agent in The International, I was initially a little worried that he might have been attempting to cash in on the fact that many viewers wanted to see him do his take on Bond. Thankfully, I was happily proven wrong, because whilst The International is far from a perfect film, it is also not just a lacklustre Bond imitator, instead standing apart as a solid, intriguing thriller.

Louis Sallinger is a former police officer-turned Interpol Agent following a lead about a potentially corrupt bank, who have allegedly been making much of their profits through mob affiliations, money laundering and even arms dealing. The closer to the truth he gets, however, the more the evidence is mysteriously erased, and the witnesses along with it, picked off one-by-one by a consummately professional hired assassin. Finding out more than he bargained for - the multinational bank he's investigating may just be funding a civil war with a view to dictating who will rule the country and profiting in that regime - his enquiries put his own life on the line and, with bodies dropping like flies around him, will he be able to expose the truth, or will they manage to silence him forever?

The International reminded me a little bit of those old school Sydney Pollack-esque thrillers, pre-MTV Generation, which relied on taut direction and sustained tension, rather than visceral bursts of energy, to entertain. Although not as classic in its style as the likes of Three Days of the Condor, The French Connection (I or II) or even the more recent Michael Clayton (Clooney deserved Best Actor for this, it is just a shame that he happened to be up against powerhouse Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood), it makes up for this by having some pretty engaging action scenes - not least one of the best shoot-outs that I have seen over the last few years (and certainly better than anything even in the last couple of, admittedly excellent, Bond movies) as well as an engaging and believable globe-trotting plot of international intrigue. The film showcases its worldwide locations with loving attention to noteworthy architecture - aside from the obvious standout set-piece of the Guggenheim in New York, we get some bleak but clinical German locations, a few lush bits of Italian scenery (complete with Bond super-villain-like headquarters) and some breathtaking Turkish settings - and the cinematography has a keen sense of symmetry to it, the visuals often having a satisfying perfection to them (the 'chase' across the Turkish rooftop gets it just right as the villain flees hurriedly towards one end of the screen just as the hero purposefully marches into sight at the other end). The film may not have that breakneck pacing that the new MTV generation is used to, with no fast-edited epileptically-cut scenes to give you that instant fix, but I think it works better for it, allowing the story, sumptuous setting and characters to evolve at a more digestible pace, basically eschewing frantic style in favour of pot-boiling menace and classic tension.

That's not to say that the film isn't without its faults, even if it does have a nice, old-school thriller feel to it. Intended to be released almost a year ago, the production was plagued by reshoots after test audiences proved none too impressed by the first draft. Apparently more action was added, although I cannot actually see how this was possible - at least in any significant respect - without reconfiguring the entire second half of the movie. Still, stripping action from the movie would probably have a detrimental effect on its ability to sustain your interest over what is a marginally over-long duration (the third act definitely loses steam and the climax is, well, somewhat anticlimactic). In addition, delaying the release by just a few months still had the knock on effect of pushing it into being released during a massive banking crisis across the US and UK. So, at a time when the word 'bank' is most associated with debt, financial ruin and crisis, a movie about an omnipotent international bank trying to control a country takes that little bit more suspension of disbelief to swallow. Timing is everything.

As for the cast, Clive Owen may make for a good action/drama lead but he seldom has to push the boundaries of his talents with his role here (and I think that his name - Louis Sallinger - is ludicrous, as are the ridiculous airbrushed images of him across the Blu-ray's cover and disc). Sure, he probably holds this whole thing together with pure charm but there wasn't enough character development or insight into a man who becomes this deeply obsessed - especially when you consider that he is aware that his action are, for all intents and purposes, borderline suicidal (given the organisation and depth of corruption that he is going up against) for us to really understand his character.

And Naomi Watts? I have absolutely no idea why she is on the front cover - nor why she deserves top billing - other than purely in an attempt to sell the movie. Don't get me wrong, I generally admire her work, and loved her in the Ring remakes (even if the originals - as is normally the case -are better), but she simply does nothing here. She plays some New York District Attorney who is sort-of advising Sallinger on what evidence is required to take the bank down, but all she basically does is follow him around for a bit, get hit by a car, and eventually get told to go home before she gets hurt any worse. It is a role almost any actress could play, insignificant and clichéd (apart from the fact that at least they don't allow the leads to allude to being in anything other than a platonic relationship), and she unfortunately brings nothing noteworthy to it. There are a couple of other familiar faces on board - in smaller roles - including the reliable cameo actor Armin Mueller-Stahl (The Peacemaker/The Game), but the only other performance really worth noting is that of relative unknown (or at least previously unnoticed) Brian O'Byrne, who plays the outwardly innocuous professional killer employed by the bank.

Directed competently by Tom “Run, Lola, Run” Tykwer, The International is a solid old-school thriller. It never really transcends the boundaries of the genre, and has no potential to be a classic in any way, but it is still much more gritty and engaging than Pollack's recent and marginally mediocre The Interpreter (which has a similar feel to it), and more exciting than the contrived 24-style Vantage Point, mainly thanks to a dark, perpetually oppressive story (nobody is safe in this film), several interesting twists, a couple of nice, tense scenes (and the aforementioned excellent shootout) and a reliably grim performance by Clive Owen. It's definitely worth checking this movie out - even if you don't immediately rush out and buy it - as it is a thrilling and compelling old school ride.

The International is a very recent production, and comes to Blu-ray with a largely excellent 1080p High Definition video presentation in the movie's original theatrical aspect ratio of widescreen 2.4:1. Detail is, at times, astounding - not least the opening close-up of Clive Owen, but also many of the later sequences, facial detail up there with the best of the best, the suits perfectly sharp or poignantly creased as appropriate, the settings varying from the clinical bank-related locales to the shoddy, dirty New York basements, but always allowing for amazing attention to detail. Softness is largely eschewed, with no overt use of DNR or edge enhancement to create such a sharp, clean image. If there is any minor quibble to raise - some of the scenes do have a thin veil of grain on them that really shouldn't be there, certainly enough to warrant the video score losing at least a point. With such stunning locations and a very keen sense of perfect symmetry, and eye for breathtaking background shots (the aerial/topographical shots are amazing and the colours are lavish, realistic and vivid throughout) this often makes for a superior disc to show off your equipment with, but - at times - it is far from perfect. Black levels too suffer from variability, with some of the night sequences more prevalent to grain than others, as if they are scenes from a very different, more gritty movie indeed. Perhaps the Director did this intentionally, but I do not buy the variant nature of the picture as being intentional, instead putting it down to the way it was shot, lit and dealt with in post-production. As I stated, this is a 80% perfect video presentation, but I cannot explain why some of the scenes just do not stand up visually alongside the others.

To accompany the flawed gem of a video presentation we get an unquestionably potent sound mix to showcase the movie's superior, and quite catchy, soundtrack. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix presents the dialogue keenly, clearly and coherently, whether taking in up-close-and-personal conversations across the frontal array or the more crowd-based atmospherics through the surrounds. The effects vary from planes flying overhead (and thus over your living room) to car crashes to simple footsteps and ambient nuances (doors closing, cars rolling past). Of course the big aural set-piece comes in the form of an extremely loud and pervasive shoot-out, with plenty of automatic gunfire to set off your surrounds and have your LFE thundering. The score is quite noteworthy too, a tinkering little ominous number that has both a thematic sense of investigation and an undercurrent of threatening dread to it, seeping into your surrounds and becoming as apparent during the longer intermediate location shots as during the more thrilling moments. Overall it is an excellent score, showcased superbly here on Blu-ray.

The most significant - and often most underestimated - extra is normally the picture-in-picture track, but here it is less an exhaustive affair and more a piecemeal gimmick. It has comments from the Director, Writer and Star Clive Owen, as well as many of the other significant cast and crew members involved in the production, all talking over a small video image in the bottom of the screen which normally depicts behind the scenes footage relevant to what it going on on-screen, and the discussions are very interesting, offering a lot of insight into the characters - much more than you can easily gleam from watching the movie itself - as well as background into the plot, how topical it was (and based on real life) a few years ago, and how it took a long time to finally come to fruition. Annoyingly, however, there are some huge chunks where simply nothing appears on screen - no commentary, no contribution, just movie, making it difficult to absorb all the information on offer without having to sit through random bits of the movie again.

The standard Commentary by the Director and the Writer is at least better sustained across the duration of the movie and, thus, offer much more information into the production, with loads of trivia about how they came up with the ideas, the shots, the locations, the action and so forth, as well as discussions about the cast chosen and the motivations of the characters that they portray. Although I would normally recommend the PIP track hands-down, the full-length commentary is much less irritating in that it is fairly consistent throughout the runtime of the film.

Although there is only one “Deleted Scene” on offer, it runs at a whopping 12 minutes in length and consists of about 4 scenes that would have played back-to-back, marking it as a sizeable chunk to have removed from the tail end of the beginning of the movie. Including more character development and relationship development between the two main characters, as well as quite a tense moment of their being chased, it is clear that they should have left this in - despite it obviously extending the movie's already long runtime by a significant amount. Still, they did well without it, although Naomi Watts' presence in this scene would have perhaps better justified her billing and presentation as such a prominent character.

What soon becomes apparent when watching the 30 minute Making-Of Documentary is that the majority of the material here has been chopped and edited for the segmented PIP track earlier. Honestly, it is better presented here, as a comprehensive, interesting look at the creation of this movie - from concept to post-production. Shooting at the Guggenheim is a brief 6 minute camcorder-shot look at this location-based setpiece, The Architecture of the International is a similarly brief but much more polished look at the locations and buildings chosen to almost become characters in their own right within the movie, and The Autostadt takes an even quicker, 5 minute look at one of the other main bits of architecture chosen for the movie. Almost all of the footage here can be glimpsed in the PIP track, if you can be bothered to sit through the entire 2 hour movie to catch the few moments of behind the scenes footage easily accessible here.

Finally, in terms of extras, we get a bunch of trailers - although none of them are for the main feature itself.

The International is an underrated old school thriller, with a contemporary, almost-topical but mis-timed story about a truly corrupt bank and the determined Interpol Agent trying to get to the truth. Featuring some superior cinematography and one standout shoot-out, the thriller loses steam in the final act, but still marks a tense, intriguing offering, and is largely carried by dependable star Clive Owen. On Blu-ray we get oddly unstable video in what should have been an easy-to-review benchmark depiction. Still, it is pretty perfect for the most part, and the audio is certainly hard to fault. Some nice extras, including a rather good deleted sequence, round off this disc and fans of old school thrillers will likely not be disappointed, nor those who like Clive Owen's myriad work. It's at least worth a rental and certainly comes recommended.