Alas, they soon slipped into full-blown L&O-derived retardation. You had to know it was coming, it's just The Way Things Are Done. On some random afternoon, they happened by the address where a cab had dropped the suspect off a bunch of times, and of course it's only minutes before Joe Suspect trots around the corner. Goddamnit. It is really tough to find someone. Let alone in a city. Let alone New York City. Let alone a secret assassin. Come on.
On the plus side, I was actually pleasantly surprised by The International. I recall this initially being called The Bank in the first previews, and then maybe The International Bank in subsequent ones. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had ended up titling it Fuck It: It's Clive Owen--it really didn't look like it was going to be much of a flick. Turns out, I was kinda wrong. Kinda. Reasons for this:
- Clive Owen is the man. I'm still shocked he wasn't cast for James Bond, and even more shocked after his role in The International--which isn't a Bond role per se, but which has all the Eurotrash aura and international intrigue of a Bond flick. When you combine this with Owen's no-fuckin'-around work in Shoot 'Em Up and his dripping machismo in Closer, the conclusion seems self-evident.
- Any scene that occurs in Europe or the Middle East is instantly superior to its American counterpart. Think about it. The Jackal, Ronin, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Bank Job, Pan's Labyrinth, Schindler's List... None of these would've had the same pull had they been set in the United States. Can you imagine Schindler's List in Toledo? No? QED.
- Holding a shoot-out in the Guggenheim is an awesome idea in theory. But it was actually executed well too; although it chose to utilize the can't-die-a-fast-enough-death cliche where a guy is shot, you think he's dead, and then--shock!--it turns out he had a vest on, the choreography, for a film of such low fanfare, was well done.
- Naomi Watts appeared on screen very infrequently. This is assuredly a good thing, because had she been given any more lines, it would have nearly completely erased the goodwill she generated with me in King Kong. Picturing Naomi Watts as a big city lawyer in the D.A.'s office is difficult enough. Envisioning a reality in which she is performing ballistics tests at the scene of a major assasination and unearthing clues as to the rest of the whodunit is too much for me to bear. She comes off like a blathering moron, totally out of her league. You know the phase highschoolers go through where, amidst night after night of SAT prep, they start saying things like "Stop acting so lugubrious" and "Mom, you're being an iconoclast"? That's Naomi Watts in The International.
