Released in a post-globalization economy teetering on the brink of a depression, THE INTERNATIONAL admirably stays in step with its time. Screenwriter Eric Singer hangs this man-against-the-machine action-thriller not on the Russians, North Koreans, or turncoats in the C.I.A., but on the I.B.B.C., an international bank that wields power through crippling debt. With villains like these, viewers fretting over their own mortgage rates will find themselves rooting zealously for these crooked financiers to fall hard. Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and his partner, New York Assistant D.A. Eleanor Whitman (the somewhat underused Naomi Watts), are consistently stonewalled by local law enforcement in their attempt to close in on the bank’s insiders. The conflict deepens two-fold as Salinger discovers not only how wide the bank’s nefarious influence spreads, but how loosely he will act within legal boundaries to get his man. Owen elevates the at-times standard espionage plot devices with his now trademark (but always riveting) me-against-the-worldisms: his hard-edged focus and steely moral clarity. Armin Mueller-Stahl also stands out in the cast as a weathered ex-communist revolutionary now finding himself in the epicenter of capitalist corruption.

With spirited but tight direction, Tom Tykwer (of RUN, LOLA, RUN and THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR fame) emphasizes longer action sequences and a more developed narrative arc than many contemporary post-BOURNE IDENTITY thrillers. The film’s centerpiece--an incredible shoot-out in the Guggenheim Museum with flying plaster, shattering installations, and shifting loyalties--reads like a disaster movie for the highbrow set as art lovers everywhere will experience a perverse thrill watching the museum’s famed spiral shot up by I.B.B.C. thugs.

DVD Features:

Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen - 2.40
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1
Dubbed, Subtitles - Portuguese, Spanish, Thai
Subtitles - Chinese, English, Korean
Additional Release Material:
Extended Scenes: Salinger & Whitman - Extended Scene
Audio Commentary: Tom Tykwer, Director; Eric Singer, Writer
Making Of:
1. Making The Internatioanl
2. The Architecture of The International

Distributor Notes: Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is determined to expose an arms dealing ring responsible for facilitating acts of terrorism around the globe. But as his investigation leads Salinger and his partner, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), deeper into the secret world of greed, corruption and murder, they become targets of a deadly conspiracy so vast, they soon find the only people left to trust?are each other. This pulse-pounding thriller plays a high-stakes game of suspense, intrigue and explosive action.

Clive Owen: British actor, CLOSER
Naomi Watts: Actress, KING KONG (2005)
Armin Mueller-Stahl: German actor, working in USA
Brian F. O'Byrne: Irish actor

Tom Tykwer: Bavaria

Charles Roven: Producer
Richard Suckle: Producer, SCOOBY-DOO (2002)
Lloyd Phillips: PRODUCER

Eric Warren Singer: Screenwriter

Tom Tykwer: Bavaria
Johnny Klimek: Composer
Reinhold Heil: Composer

Mathilde Bonnefoy: 

"Tom Tykwer's glossy, high finance conspiracy thriller is a spectacular looking film with an unsettling intensity."
"THE INTERNATIONAL gets high marks for timeliness....It's a well-made and handsome drama....Clive Owen does a fine job..."
"Shot by Tykwer's usual cinematographer Frank Griebe, THE INTERNATIONAL exhibits noticeable visual style as it gallivants around the world, and it also has some solid action sequences."
3 stars out of 4 -- "The movie has a scene in it Hitchcock might have envied, a gun battle ranging up and down the ramps of the Guggenheim Museum in New York....The visuals are terrific..."
"THE INTERNATIONAL is in many ways a throwback to the monochrome urban thrillers of the 1970s, with the added topical twist of having a diabolical financial institution at its center....The compulsively watchable Owen makes for an ideal leading man..."
4 stars out of 5 -- "[I]n Tykwer's assured hands, and boasting dazzling photography, THE INTERNATIONAL rises tot he top of the espionage pile."
"Owen supplies the needed center of gravity....Owen has proved himself the thinking man and woman's action hero, serving up brains and brawn in a hypnotic wrapper."
"[T]he star of the pic may well be NYC's Guggenheim Museum and Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, both of which figure in cool action chase sequences that pay handsome dividends."
"Both Watts and Owen give solid performances as determined investigators, but it's the chemistry between them that makes the whole thing work."