The International

An Interpol agent (Clive Owen) and a Manhattan district attorney (Naomi Watts) attempt to bring down a massive financial institution with suspected dirty dealings.

The International is a muddled thriller that never finds its voice. Watching the film, you’d never know it was directed by Tom Tykwer, who broke out with the frantic actioner, Run, Lola Run, and previously turned in the dark costume thriller, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Scheduled for release in August of 2008, studio-ordered reshoots to add more action sequences pushed it to February 2009. What Tykwer’s original vision was, we’ll likely never know, but the resulting film is awkward at best.

Stars Clive Owen and Naomi Watts are fine enough, but the script frequently has them talking to the audience as opposed to each other, cramming tons and tons of expositionary dialog into their exchanges. Indeed, much of the dialog sounds “off,” like it’s being read rather than said.

In the middle of all this there’s a rather well done set piece involving the Guggenheim Museum in New York that echoes the polished thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock. If the whole film were as good as this one sequence, it’d be something special, but sadly, it’s remarkably average, so much so that without the charisma of Owen and Watts, it would feel like a mild burn.