The International is a strange movie. It survives completely on its terrific story idea, which is the idea that international banking controls the world, deals arms, assassinates people, manipulates countries through the debt they accrue fighting ridiculous wars, and basically exists completely outside and above the system because of the complicity of the world’s political structures. The set-up for the film sucks, but it doesn’t seem to matter because the idea of the story keeps you interested. The dialog is pretty bad most of the time, but then every once in a while there is a really memorable exchange that is decently written and executed. The pacing of the film is generally sub-par, but then there are several really good action sequences (particularly the one in the Guggenheim) that leave you transfixed. It’s like the film is maybe 20% “quite good” and 80% standard mediocre fare. The good parts actually make it worth it, in my opinion.

Naomi Watts is horrible in this film, as she is in most films (thankfully she kind of drops out of the action a bit toward the end.) But Clive Owen surprised me – it’s actually one of his better performances, if you discount some of the tired lines he has to try to pull off. The supporting cast is actually pretty good. The incidental casting is weak, but it doesn’t really matter given the way the story is structured.

If you like political action films, give this film a try. It’s not great, and I don’t think I would ever watch it again, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.