The International
Short description
An Interpol agent and a legal professional team up to expose the criminal activities of a powerful global bank. Their investigation reveals a network involved in arms trafficking and money laundering intended to undermine governments. The pursuit leads them through several cities, including Berlin, Milan, New York, and Istanbul, where their efforts to bring the organization to justice eventually threaten their own lives.
Directed by Tom Tykwer, the film followed his earlier projects such as Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and Paris Je T'aime. The movie stars Clive Owen as Louis Salinger and Naomi Watts as Eleanor Whitman, with Armin Mueller-Stahl and Ulrich Thomsen in supporting roles. The production was a collaboration between companies in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
With a budget of 50 million USD, the film earned 60 million USD at the worldwide box office. On IMDb, it holds a rating of 6.5/10 based on 98,462 votes, while on TMDB it has a rating of 6.3/10 from 1,487 votes. Film critics gave the movie a lower rating of 5.8/10 based on 212 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- The primary source of inspiration for the filmmakers was the financial scandal involving the international bank “Bank of Credit and Commerce International” in the early 1990s. The names of the two banks, the fictional one in the film and the real one, are quite similar, just as the bank's activities in the film closely resemble those that “Bank of Credit and Commerce International” was accused of.
- After unsuccessful test screenings, the film's premiere was postponed from August 2008 to February 2009 in order to have time to reshoot several scenes and make the film more focused on action.
- Copies of the film were delivered to American cinemas under the false title “Across Boundaries”.
- The tense shootout scene with explosions, as scripted, takes place in the famous New York Guggenheim Museum, during which the museum building suffers serious damage. To film it, an exact replica of the building's interior was constructed using the original blueprints inside an old abandoned locomotive depot. It took 4 months of work to build such a massive structure.
- During the film, the heroine Naomi Watts exchanges SMS messages with someone from her contacts. The sender's number, 352 22 28 09, which appears on her BlackBerry smartphone, actually exists and belongs to a Luxembourg travel agency.
- The German Federal Film Fund provided 5.8 million euros (approximately 7.9 million dollars) for the production of the film, on the condition that at least two-thirds of the filming process takes place in Germany, and that German actors Armin Mueller-Stahl, Axel Milberg, cinematographer Frank Griebe, and production designer Uli Hanisch are involved in the work.
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