I watched The International (2009) tonight after it was recommended in my post on dissident films. Spoilers are ahead if you havn’t seen it and plan to, so be forewarned.

I would personally classify the film as a standard detective film except for a couple of key scenes. The key scenes include (1) when Clive Owen meets with an arms dealer who tells him that the reason why the bank wants to supply arms to countries is for control — not for control of the outcome, although that’s nice, but rather for control of the nation’s debt. Control the debt of a country and you control everything; and (2) when Owen interviews one of the higher up bank conspirators and the conspirator tells Owen that the bank will not be taken down despite its criminal activity because the system is doing the same stuff everywhere, and they cannot be allowed to fail without dragging others down. These are good messages, but really it was only two scenes in the movie that pushed this message.

Other than that I really like Clive Owen as an actor; he’s great in everything he’s in, he captivates the screen. I remember seeing him for the first time in Closer (2004) and thought he was a star then. The guy who played the assassin did a good job; everyone else was forgettable imo.

Also, it’s both funny and horrifying that the eye-popping dollar amounts being transacted in the film are only a couple hundred million dollars in total. Remember that the total bailout in the 2007 financial collapse was $800 billion dollars all-in for everything and everyone; now globohomo prints tens or hundreds of billions of dollars like it’s pocket change. Just yesterday it was revealed Biden’s administration blew $40 billion dollars (laundered back into their own pockets) on a non-functioning satellite internet system: x.com/alecstapp/status/1803444325197418…

This is going to end very poorly.

Anyway I would give The International a mild recommend, mostly forgettable except for those scenes.