The International/Columbia Pictures/2009/R

What do you get when you have the world's largest bank doing business with governments, corrupt corporations, rogue states, terrorists, and drug cartels? You have business as usual in the real world of course. But you also get the main bad guy in the new political action thriller The International starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. Based on the real life BCCI bank
(who did business with the CIA, Mossad, Saudi Arabia, dictators global drug cartels and al Qaeda to name a few), the plot is quite a doozy. Uncovering a sprawling nexus of arms sales, major corruption, money laundering, and puppeteering of heads of state(with destabilization of governments on the side), Interpol Agent Louis Salinger(Owen) sure has his work cut out for him. Like most people who talk of deep state political webs and networks, shadowy cabals behind the scenes(CONSPIRACY THEORIST!), poor Agent Salinger doesn't have anyone who believes him.

Often times, real life bears astonishingly complex and shocking webs of conspiracies involving elements of governments, criminal networks, intelligence agencies and high finance. From the trailers it was clear the film was loosely based off BCCI and the CIA front corporation Permindex, who many believed was connected to the JFK assassination. Within the world of "The International", in candid talks the heads of states and banks casually remark how such conspiracies is merely business as usual. Luckily, Agent Salinger does get one person on board. The ever talented and intriguing Naomi Watts(Mullholland Drive, The Ring) Here, her portrayal as a New York district attorney joins with Salinger in literally going around the globe trying to track down this octopus. While many critics and filmgoers have slapped the film as being too convuluted, I really found myself immersed in the film. And I have to say, the long epic shootout in the New York Guggenheim Museum(clearly the film's main attraction) has to be *the* best shooting scene since Michael Mann's 1995 film Hear. While the movie got panned for having seemingly little fleshed out protagonists, I felt they were exactly what they needed to be:
Two plucky determined agents finding themselves uncovering one whopper of a mind bending global conspiracy bringing you along for the ride. (*note we haven't seen the Guggenheim itself star in a film since the visionary 2003 Matthew Barney film Cremaster 3)