In the passable thriller ,The International, directed by Tom Tykwer, the events may be far fetched but anyone who has read Naomi Klein’s ‘The Shock Doctrine’ with know that the MacGuffin is credible enough. High powered international bank seeks to engineer a third world political and economic crisis so that they are uniquely placed to bale out the financially distressed.
The problem is compounded here by the fact that only Clive Owen can save us from this deadly peril. Anyone familiar with his previous work will know that this means we’re effectively fucked. He covers his usual bases which range from slightly miffed rugged action man to seriously pissed rugged action man.
The centre piece of the movie is a shoot out in New York’s Guggenheim Museum that goes on for ever and calls into serious question the NYPD response times.
The best scene is where Owen confronts one of the villains in chief and in the course of the why-are-you-such-a-bad-man confrontation, the baddie comes out with the great line: “that’s the difference between the truth and fiction – fiction has to make sense”.
