The International

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release date: February 13, 2009

Starring: Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl

Directed by: Tom Tykwer

Premise: An Interpol agent (Owen) attempts to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring.

[pete]

too many spoilers in the trailer.  but the movie also looks really, really stupid.  it seems one of those scripts that comes about after some dude reads a book on a plane and thinks "I can add some machine gun to this complicated and well-documented issue that I've only half-understood."  like you know, a guy who wishes The Confession of an Economic Hitman was an actual hitman.

[MacGuffin]

His passions propel 'International' director Tom Tykwer
Director Tom Tykwer brings a human element to the action genre in 'The International.'
By Elaine Dutka; Los Angeles Times

Moral ambiguity and human complexity aren't qualities usually associated with action films, but for German director Tom Tykwer, they're essential parts of the mix.

Great thrillers must not only work on a genre level but also contain moral perspectives as well, said Tykwer, who's best known for his 1998 hyperkinetic international hit "Run Lola Run." It's a philosophy that provides the underpinning for his new film "The International," a cat-and-mouse chase set in motion by the corruption of financial institutions -- an all-too-timely theme given the current economic collapse.

"Filmmaking is about investigating real people and social realities," Tykwer, 43, continued, speaking recently by phone from Berlin. "You can't have a meaningful film -- even a romantic comedy -- without that as a subtext."

The film world took notice of "Lola," "International" producer Charles Roven ("The Dark Knight") recalled, impressed by its energy and style.

"You can tell a Tom Tykwer film," Roven said. "Tom wasn't just the man of the moment but someone Hollywood has consistently pursued."

Roven approached Tykwer to direct "The International," the story of an Interpol agent (Clive Owen) and a Manhattan D.A. (Naomi Watts) battling a corrupt banking behemoth with political tentacles. The $60-million movie, his big-budget action debut, recently opened the Berlin International Film Festival and will be released in the U.S. on Friday.

The film, based on first-time screenwriter Eric Warren Singer's script, is also painted in shades of gray.

No one is just one thing, Tykwer maintains. His protagonists often do wrong for the right reasons. Lola (Tykwer's former girlfriend, Franka Potente) steals 100,000 deutsche marks to save her drug-dealing lover. In "Heaven" (2002), Philippa (Cate Blanchett) detonates a bomb to avenge the drug death of her student. "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" (2007) puts the viewer in the shoes of an isolated outsider, struggling with the rules.

"The bankers live in nice houses, go to art exhibits, blackening out the moral implications of their daily existence," Tykwer said. "They didn't create the system, they say. Because people identify with the failures of others, the audience doesn't know how to position itself. That's far more interesting than having Dr. Evil sitting there with a deadly smile on his face."

Those who work with Tykwer say he thrives on challenges and dives into all aspects of filmmaking.

"Tom is creatively confident enough to say 'I don't know,' " Blanchett said. "But, unlike many people. he won't rest until he knows the answer inside out, back to front. He's the god of detail."

This time around, Tykwer color-schemed Berlin, Milan, Istanbul and New York, juxtaposing past and present through architecture. The goal: to evoke the feeling of angry flies entangled in a perfectly organized spider web. The final shootout was shot on a re- creation of Manhattan's spiraling Guggenheim Museum.

Tykwer also co-composes his films' scores. It counterbalances the precision needed to make a movie, he explains, tapping into the unexpected and the irrational. Highly collaborative, the director leans on a closely knit team he takes from film to film. At times, however, he pushed so hard Owen feared he'd have a breakdown.

"All directors are workaholics but Tom takes it to another level, sometimes going straight from second-unit night shoots on to the main unit with maybe two hours sleep," recalled Owen.

Even then, Owen said, he trusted him implicitly: "Directing is all about taste and Tom's is impeccable."

Born in Wuppertal, a small industrial town north of Cologne and Düsseldorf, Tykwer is a self-described "film geek": "I'm quite a one-note character. I feel a bit embarrassed."

Immersed in the "fantasy" of movies early on, he shifted gears at the age of 10. It was then that he saw "King Kong," he recalled, which opened his eyes to the craft of filmmaking. That year, he started making Super-8 movies. At 16, he became the projectionist at a local art house. After midnight he'd have the complex to himself, watching 50 films a week.

"Alien" was his favorite of that period, emblematic of what he tries to achieve -- a spectacular reinvention of the sci-fi/horror genre that was also a complex study of people in distress.

Post-graduation, Tykwer programmed movies at Berlin's Moviemento Cinema and soon waded into the water himself. After two short films, he wrote and directed "Deadly Maria" (1993), a well-received psychological thriller. In 1994, he and three colleagues formed X Films, a company for which he's written and produced. Co-owned by the filmmakers, he observes, the model is reminiscent of the original United Artists, created by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith.

An avid student of film history, the director is drawn to the human struggles in the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Francois Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa, as well as to gritty, character-driven American classics such as "Bullitt," "Taxi Driver," "The Conversation" and "The French Connection."

While Tykwer soaks up what came before, he's an original, by any measure. In "Lola," he combined live action, animation, split screens and fast and slow motion, setting them to a techno beat. He substituted colors for scents in "Perfume," a grisly tale of obsession that elicited raves and pans. Convinced that women are more open and "anarchic," he often puts them center-stage and engages in role reversals.

Blanchett's character in "Heaven" found redemption through love, an ongoing theme of Tykwer's. A short of his starring Natalie Portman was one of 20 that made up "Paris, je t'aime" (2006), which depicted love in Paris.

Though the director "wouldn't admit it," Blanchett said, "he's deeply romantic -- not in the banal chocolate-and-flowers-giving kind of way but in the hopeful, open-to-life kind of way. He feels things deeply."

Richard Suckle, another producer of "The International," calls Tykwer a natural leader: Though "everyone wants to go on his journey," he's less about ego than "process."

He didn't set out to play in the big leagues with mega-watt stars and budgets, Tykwer insists. Rather than devising a game plan, he simply follows his passions. He and girlfriend Maria Steinman recently spent six weeks in Kenya, where he shot "Soul Boy," a 17-minute short. It will be distributed by a company they founded that brings art into developing countries.

Tykwer has joined forces with the Wachowski brothers (the "Matrix" trilogy) to adapt David Mitchell's award-winning "Cloud Atlas," which intertwines six stories from different eras, the kind of untraditional work that attracts him.

"I belong to a generation of filmmakers who want cinema to be both pleasure and experiment," the director said. "Mainstream and art can be married. Everyone wants to see something artistically daring -- as long as it's exciting to watch."

[private witt]

Okay, seriously, are handguns, trench coats, and facial stubble some sort of contractual obligation Clive Owen is stuck with or what?  Gimme a break.

[Stefen]

too many spoilers in the trailer.  but the movie also looks really, really stupid.  it seems one of those scripts that comes about after some dude reads a book on a plane and thinks "I can add some machine gun to this complicated and well-documented issue that I've only half-understood."  like you know, a guy who wishes The Confession of an Economic Hitman was an actual hitman.

haha

[pete]

just saw it.  I called it.
constant gardener but stupid.  it goes into the real real awful territory when they run around in the turkish market in the film's climax and the crowds keep on staring into the camera with mild curiosity.

[MacGuffin]

This was a top notch, well-executed action thriller. Not on the level of the Bourne or Craig's Bond films, but worthy of being placed along side those. A foot pursuit is even exciting, leading to a very tense shoot out at the Guggenheim that lives up to the hype.

[pete]

it's not top notch at all.  nobody looks comfortable and no character was a least bit interesting.  it chooses boring politics (banks finance wars, which was touched upon in maybe like twelve sentences at most) and stupid morals ("you kill one bad person, 10,000 more will take his place") and a forced bleak ending (pensive look, cut to credits) that's a pale echo of The Constant Gardener.

it's also pretty amatuerish in terms of execution, from cliches such as "bad guy gets sniped by badder guys the moment he's about to divulge information" (3 times), to video conferences of evil people, to solving murders instantly throughout the film...etc. etc.  There were CGI falls from high places and as mentioned before - dozens of shots of mildly curious by-standers staring right into the camera.
It also doesn't really seem knowledgeable enough about anything - not about espionage, not about politics, not about murder mysteries, so it keeps on relying on cliches (cartoonish bad cops, unexplained sudden appearances of bad guys with uzis, evil europeans...etc.).  It was a waste of my time and I hate movies that make me feel bad for knowing too much.

[Pas]

It also doesn't really seem knowledgeable enough about anything - not about espionage, not about politics, not about murder mysteries, so it keeps on relying on cliches (cartoonish bad cops, unexplained sudden appearances of bad guys with uzis, evil europeans...etc.).  It was a waste of my time and I hate movies that make me feel bad for knowing too much.

my exact feeling. Nothing works in life as it does in the film. Where films like Lord of War made us at least believe we were getting insight into the arms dealing business, here there is no plausiblity whatsoever so we are left to believe that banks don't actually finance wars, which they sometimes do.