Henry Hartman said that “Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity.” Timing helps, which probably goes hand in hand with that whole opportunity thing, and all things considered, the studio behind The International couldn’t have picked a better time to open the film. If there’s one thing we can all agree on right now, it’s that banks suck. We hate them, they’re greedy, and it’s not so much a leap in our minds that the major banks might have pissed away all their money on Chinese missiles. Even though the whole hat in hand begging in Washington would countermand the view that banks are havens for Machiavelli scheming, the idea that maybe they are is still delicious.

Clive Owen once again seems to relive his status as an almost James Bond by putting on the frumpy suit of Interpol agent Louis Salinger, a lone voice for fighting the power against the dirty as sin International Bank of Business and Credit. Anyone on the inside that tries to move against their employer ends up dead or disappeared, which obviously has some frustrating implications for Salinger and New York District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts). Under the gun from their respective bosses, who want this go nowhere investigation wrapped, Salinger and Whitman have one last go to bring down the IBBC on the eve of their shadiest deal yet.

The International plays things cool, like The Bourne Identity meets All The President’s Men. It’s certainly well shot, well made and well paced. But at the same time, it feels like there’s something lacking, an essential ingredient missing that I think is the human factor. All you ever hear from these characters is how they’ve got to stop the bank and how they’re “this close” to bringing down the bank, it’s like listening to a broken record. And then there’s this huge shoot out in the Guggenheim museum that is at once awesome and disturbing because basically it seems that the response time of the NYPD is about 20 minutes. If the sound of small arms fire and the sight of people running for their lives from one of Manhattan’s most prominent landmarks can’t solicit a quick reaction from the police, I don’t know what will.

The Guggenheim shoot out is the film’s centrepiece, but to be honest the rest of the film has the same kind of “ripped-from-the-headlines” neutrality of an average episode of Law & Order. The Banking guys seem so lame and not the least bit scary. For example, look at Armin Mueller-Stahl, who plays one of the banks’ “contractors” and is about as threatening as a kindly old shoemaker, or the man that owns the candy store. Remember that the scary guy in Bond movies isn’t the mastermind, but one of his weirdo henchmen that have a metal jaw, or a claw for a hand. No one from the bank is scary, and there’s certainly no sign that they’re up to shifty things as they have conference calls and meetings in brightly lit rooms like they’re some kind of, well, bank.

The script doesn’t exploit the concept as well as it could, and despite reshoots that gave us some beefed up action, I’m afraid that my piggy bank gives me more chills than The International. Do I believe that money-loving bank executives can be evil? Duh, but the guys in this film are pure Lollipop Guild but without the creepiness. And why send Clive Owen, and for that matter what’s his character’s motivation? At the very least though, they get the climax of the film right as the Bank’s head weasel runs for his life from Owen’s Salinger, as he calmly chases the master exec with gun in hand. It’s a cathartic release because the Regular Joes hate the fat cats, and if nothing else we’d just like to put the fear of retribution in the back of their minds, at the very least for years of exorbitant ATM fees. In the sequel, look for Salinger to fight an evil oil company.