The International

Imagine for a second a Fleming Bond stripped of glamour and sophistication or a Bourne without the plot device. Imagine the tedium of the bland urban greys and cold metallic blues that make up real intelligence work.

Yeah, sounds terrible doesn’t it? But it’s exactly this that makes Tom Tykwer's film such a draw. The plot is zeitgeist reality, picking at the nervous tensions of modern society and scrutinising banking institutions and their less than scrupulous dealings.

In this chilling reality, we have dishevelled Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen), and his dogged investigation of the IBBC (an obvious reference to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal of the late 90s), which is believed to be brokering arms deals.

After losing a colleague and a potential informant to the bank’s operatives, and stymied by the bureaucracy of his position, Salinger breaks with protocol and heads off on a world-spanning mission to thwart their plans.

Owen was never right for Bond. Flatfooted and far too versatile an actor for glossy vacuity, here he seems to relish the irony of an agent who has limited powers yet is driven by a mania that has caused him trouble in the past. He’s blandly professional, charming in a blunt, fragile way and brings the right side of vulnerability to the superlative action sequences.

Speaking of action, it’s not such a great surprise Tykwer’s at the helm. Like Owen, he is a similar mismatch for commercial cinema, and brings a perfect blend of the clinical and the kinetic to the edit. There’s a whiff of the choking paranoia of Seventies Pakula and the horrible normalcy of Pollack’s Three Days Of The Condor. And while his chilly direction means the film sags once the foot comes off the gas, when it is motoring the film really explodes.

Astonishing is one word to describe some of the action; the film evincing an impressive precision in a world of whirligig camera work and choppy editing. Twyker is one of very few anti-Bays, and for that alone, he should be commended. Each of the film’s locations, whether it’s the blank drizzle of a car park, the stark professionalism of a hit in a Milan square or the channels of the NY streets, has the same oppressive atmosphere.

And in the Guggenheim, he finds the perfect location for a gunfight. The curving architecture of the building embraces like a Hitchcockian dream at the same time as it constricts. Action becomes an expression of mood. Everything - from the pure white of its walls, perforated by bullets, to the ant-like people below screaming as the action takes place on the floors above, to the assassins mixing in with the confusion of fragmented images from the video installations and shiny panels lining the walls - screams tour-de-force filmmaking.

It’s little surprise really when you consider the influence of Krzysztof Kie?lowski on Tykwer, a similarly dynamic, humanistic director. The ending of the film resonates with his themes - specifically, moral dilemma and coincidence. Less deus ex machina, more cruel play of fate that gives us a happy ending while twisting the knife as the credits roll.