Hollywood Reporter
"Tom Tykwer's glossy, high finance conspiracy thriller is a spectacular looking film with an unsettling intensity." 02/05/2009USA Today
"THE INTERNATIONAL gets high marks for timeliness....It's a well-made and handsome drama....Clive Owen does a fine job..." 02/13/2009 Chicago Sun-Times
3 stars out of 4 -- "The movie has a scene in it Hitchcock might have envied, a gun battle ranging up and down the ramps of the Guggenheim Museum in New York....The visuals are terrific..." 02/13/2009 Los Angeles Times
"Shot by Tykwer's usual cinematographer Frank Griebe, THE INTERNATIONAL exhibits noticeable visual style as it gallivants around the world, and it also has some solid action sequences." 02/13/2009 Washington Post
"THE INTERNATIONAL is in many ways a throwback to the monochrome urban thrillers of the 1970s, with the added topical twist of having a diabolical financial institution at its center....The compulsively watchable Owen makes for an ideal leading man..." 02/13/2009 Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "[I]n Tykwer's assured hands, and boasting dazzling photography, THE INTERNATIONAL rises tot he top of the espionage pile." 03/01/2009 Rolling Stone
"Owen supplies the needed center of gravity....Owen has proved himself the thinking man and woman's action hero, serving up brains and brawn in a hypnotic wrapper." 03/05/2009 Premiere
"Both Watts and Owen give solid performances as determined investigators, but it's the chemistry between them that makes the whole thing work." 02/19/2009 Entertainment Weekly
"[T]he star of the pic may well be NYC's Guggenheim Museum and Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, both of which figure in cool action chase sequences that pay handsome dividends." 02/20/2009 ReelViews 7 of 10
The International possesses the look and feel of a thriller, but not the heart or soul of one. With a cold, clinical precision, director Tom Tykwer establishes the complex narrative and weaves in a few extraneous action sequences, but it's an exercise in plot contortions. There are no characters to speak of - just moving pieces that go where the storyline demands and do what the storyline requires. Clive Owen, normally an actor of great charisma and energy, is flat. And Naomi Watts is criminally underused. She spends most of her screen time standing around playing second fiddle to Owen. In the end, we're left wondering why she agreed to be in the film...The story unfolds like a novel of international intrigue but there's almost too much information and exposition to convey cleanly within the confines of a two-hour motion picture. There are also a couple of extended action scenes (including a rather spectacular shoot-out at the Guggenheim Museum that is as good-looking as it is dramatically unnecessary) that appear to have been shoehorned into the movie to increase its action quotient. The ultimate pointlessness of these scenes makes them feel more like loud, messy distractions...To date, director Tykwer is probably best known as the architect of Run Lola Run, the fast-paced, high-voltage thriller that became a huge success on the art house circuit a decade ago. Little of the innovation or energy evident in Run Lola Run can be found in The International. In fact, this film's greatest strength lies not in its visceral, action-oriented scenes but in those that hint at the kinds of international conspiracies that are easy enough to believe in today's economic climate. The main thing that keeps The International from being truly gripping is the replacement of flesh-and-blood protagonists with photogenic mannequins. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Not since the days of silent movies have bankers as a group been cast so ruthlessly as villains. They used to wear waxed mustaches and throw widows and orphans out into the storm. Now the mustaches are gone. "Banker" has been incorporated into the all-embracing term "Wall Street." The bankers in "The International" broker arms deals, sell missiles under the counter and assassinate anyone who gets too snoopy...Whether this is a fair portrait is not the purpose of a film review to determine. It is accurate of the bankers on view here, and given the face of Armin Mueller-Stahl, once familiar as a good guy, now enjoying a new career as a ruthless villain. His bank, based in Luxembourg as so many schemes are, has been assassinating nosey-parkers for getting too close to their operations, which involve investing in African rebels, nuclear weaponry and arming both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...I enjoyed "The International." Clive Owen makes a semi-believable hero, not performing too many feats that are physically unlikely. He's handsome and has the obligatory macho stubble, but he has a quality that makes you worry a little about him. I like heroes who could get killed. As the plucky DA, Naomi Watts wisely plays up her character's legal smarts and plays down the inevitable possibility that the two of them will fall in love...The director is Tom Tykwer ("Run, Lola, Run"). Here he's concerned not merely with thriller action but with an actual subject: the dangers of a banking system that operates offshore no matter where your shoreline is. We're gradually getting it into our heads that in the long run, your nuclear capability may not be as important as your bank balance. Banks are not lending much money these days, but if you want to buy some warheads, they might take a meeting. - Roger Ebert
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