Tuesday 21 April 2009

22 Things I Learned From 'The International'




1. Trailers that suggest a film is going to be a Jason Bourne-style frantic-a-thon are often misleading.

2. Always look both ways before crossing the street.

3. All Italian police are corrupt.

4. Evil banking consortiums hire the best architects.

5. Hiring an assassin with an identifiable physical abnormality may be de rigour for this kind of thing, but it’s still a stupid thing to do.

6. The walls of the Guggenheim Museum are bulletproof.

7. The people who control the money don’t necessarily control the world, the people who control the debt do.

8. Airport security works just fine.

9. The ubiquity of capital investment in dodgy political regimes is now presented in film shorthand via an African despot (see also Casino Royale and the current season of 24).

10. Inside Interpol, Scotland Yard is referred to as “the Yard”.

11. Armin-Mueller Stahl hasn’t forgotten how to act, it’s just that he hasn’t been trying lately.

12. Armed goons still aren’t a cost-effective problem-solver.

13. Attempting a Noo Yawk accent for two lines of dialogue is enough for Naomi Watts, thank you very much.

14. Compared to the International Bank of Business and Credit, Halifax and Northern Rock conduct themselves ethically and sensitively.

15. Helicopter shots can still be breathtaking.

16. Clive Owen is now the icon for the modern man: single-minded, confused, belligerent, ultimately ineffectual.

17. Acting is only as bad as you think it is.

18. The mafia always get their way in the end.

19. As in property, as in spy films: location location location.

20. Crossing Michael Clayton with Quantum of Solace and throwing in some Niall Ferguson-style economics works rather well actually.

21. Director Tom Tykwer is a much smarter man than he wants you to think.

22. Movies that are only released to cinemas for about twenty minutes aren’t necessarily crap, just misunderstood genius.