Coordinates | 20°34′00″N103°40′35″N |
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name | The International |
director | Tom Tykwer |
producer | Charles RovenRichard SuckleLloyd Phillips |
writer | Eric Warren Singer |
starring | Clive OwenNaomi WattsArmin Mueller-StahlBrian F. O'ByrneUlrich Thomsen |
music | Tom TykwerReinhold HeilJohnny KlimekMatthew Bellamy |
cinematography | Frank Griebe |
editing | Mathilde Bonnefoy |
studio | Relativity Media |
distributor | Columbia Pictures |
released | February 13, 2009 |
runtime | 118 min. |
country | |
language | EnglishItalianFrench |
budget | $50 million |
gross | $60 million (worldwide) }} |
''The International'' is a 2009 thriller film directed by Tom Tykwer. The film follows an Interpol agent (Clive Owen) and an American attorney (Naomi Watts) who investigate corruption within the IBBC, a fictional merchant bank based in Luxembourg. It serves organized crime and corrupt governments as a banker and as an arms broker. The bank's ruthless managers assassinate potential threats, including their own employees.
Modelled after the Bank of Credit and Commerce International banking scandal, the film's script, written by Eric Singer, was inspired by banking scandals in the 1980s and concerns about how global finance affects politics across the world. Production began in Berlin in September 2007, including the construction of a life size replica of the Guggenheim museum in New York for the film's climactic shoot-out scene. The film opened the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival on 5 February 2009. Reviews were mixed: some praised the sleek appearance and prescient themes, ''The Guardian'' called it a thriller with "brainpower as well as firepower" but ''The New Yorker'' criticised the characterisation saying the two protagonists were not believable humans.
In New York, Salinger and Whitman are met by two NYPD detectives, Iggy Ornelas (Felix Solis) and Bernie Ward (Jack McGee), who have a photograph of the assassin's face when he arrived in New York airport. Salinger, Ornelas, and Ward locate Dr. Isaacson (Tibor Feldman) to whose practice the assassin's leg brace has been traced. They find the assassin (Brían F. O'Byrne) and follow him to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen), the chairman of the IBBC, reveals to his senior men White (Patrick Baladi) and Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl) that the bank had Calvini killed so that they could deal with his sons, to buy guidance systems for missiles in which the bank has invested. Since the bank knows that Salinger and Whitman are close to finding their assassin, they send a hit team to kill him at a meeting between him and his handler, Wexler. Wexler leaves and is arrested by Ornelas. As Salinger speaks to the assassin, a spectacular gunfight at the Guggenheim erupts when a number of gunmen attempt to kill them with automatic weapons. They escape, but the assassin is mortally wounded.
In interrogation, Wexler, a former Stasi colonel, explains to Salinger that the IBBC is practically untouchable because of its utility to terrorist organisations, drug cartels, governments, and powerful corporations of all complexions. Even if he succeeds in bringing the IBBC down, there are hundreds of other banks, which will replace them. If Salinger wants justice, he needs to go outside the system, and Wexler indicates a willingness to help. In Italy, Salinger tells the Calvini brothers of the IBBC's responsibility for their father's murder, prompting them to cancel the deal with the bank and have White killed.
Salinger then accompanies Wexler to Istanbul, where Skarssen is buying the crucial components from their only other manufacturer. Salinger attempts to record the conversation so that he can obstruct the deal by proving to the buyers that the missiles will be useless, but he ultimately fails. Both Wexler and Skarssen are then killed by a hitman contracted by Enzo and Mario Calvini to avenge their father's murder by the bank. Salinger is left stunned, his investigation, pursuit, and determination to bring down the IBBC, have led him to nothing. During the closing credits, it is indicated that the bank is successfully continuing with its operations despite the death of its Chairman—as Skarssen had predicted to Salinger before he was killed.
Clive Owen called the shoot-out scene "one of the most exquisitely executed sequences I've been involved in". This set was too large for the studio, so instead was built in a disused locomotive warehouse outside Berlin; construction took ten weeks. Having filmed in the real museum interior and on the sound stage in Germany, the film crew had to track the lights and camera angles carefully throughout to ensure continuity. The scene includes a sequence in which the protagonist sends a huge art-chandelier hanging from the ceiling crashing to the ground, the entire stunt was created computer generated imagery.
It was released in France under the title "L'Enquête – The International" on 11 March 2009, it earned € 264 054 EUR during a three week release.
Reviewers called the film "topical" and "remarkably prescient", due to its release during the worldwide recession and during the financial crisis of 2007–2010 though it had been delayed from 2008. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on June 9, 2009. It contains a digital copy for portable devices.
In his review for ''The Guardian'', Peter Bradshaw wrote, "I felt occasionally that Owen's rumpled performance is in danger of becoming a little one-note ... but this is still an unexpectedly well–made thriller with brainpower as well as firepower". Philip French, in his review for ''The Observer'', called the film a "slick, fast-moving conspiracy thriller" and the gunfight in the Guggenheim "spectacular". In his review for ''The Independent'', Anthony Quinn wrote, "It's reasonably efficient, passably entertaining, and strenuously playing catch-up with the Bourne movies: flat-footed Owen doesn't look as good as Matt Damon sprinting through city streets, and the editing doesn't match Paul Greengrass's whiplash pace". (Coincidently, Owen played an "asset" in ''The Bourne Identity''.)
''The New Yorker'' magazine's David Denby wrote, "And there's a big hole in the middle of the movie: the director, Tom Tykwer, and the screenwriter, Eric Warren Singer, forgot to make their two crusaders human beings". In his review for ''The New York Post'', Lou Lumenick wrote, "There, an anticlimactic rooftop chase reminds us that Tykwer, the German director who reinvented the Euro thriller with ''Run, Lola, Run'' a decade ago, has been far surpassed by Paul Greengrass and the Bourne adventures, yet thankfully lacking the rampant and nonsensical roller-coaster style of editing, where no shot lingers for longer than a nano-second.". A.O. Scott, in his review for ''The New York Times'', wrote, "''The International'', in contrast, is so undistinguished that the moments you remember best are those that you wish another, more original director had tackled". Citing the climatic shoot-out in the Guggenheim, hailed by other critics as spectacular, Scott wonders if another, such as Brian de Palma could have "turned into a fugue of architectural paranoia"?
In his review for the ''Los Angeles Times'', Kenneth Turan wrote, "It's got some effective moments and aspects, but the film goes in and out of plausibility, and its elements never manage to unify into a coherent whole". Claudia Puig, in her review for ''USA Today'', wrote, "The dialogue by screenwriter Eric Warren Singer is spotty. There are some great, pithy lines and others whose attempt at profundity ring false". Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "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". ''Entertainment Weekly'' gave the film a "B–" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "the 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".
The film earned an average rating of three stars from five from French critics, according to Allociné, a film-tracking website.
Category:2009 films Category:American political thriller films Category:English-language films Category:Films directed by Tom Tykwer Category:2000s thriller films Category:Psychological thriller films Category:Films set in Berlin Category:Films shot in Turkey Category:Films set in Istanbul Category:Films set in Milan Category:Films set in New York City Category:Relativity Media films Category:Columbia Pictures films
ar:الدولي (فيلم) da:The International de:The International es:The International - Dinero en la sombra fa:بینالمللی (فیلم) fr:L'Enquête (film) it:The International nl:The International (film) ja:ザ・バンク 堕ちた巨像 pl:The International (film) pt:The International ru:Интернэшнл fi:The International tr:Uluslararası (film) uk:Інтернаціональ
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.
The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus) assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "''the Great''".
The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).
Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.
As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.
Category:Monarchs Great, List of people known as The Category:Greatest Nationals Category:Epithets
bs:Spisak osoba znanih kao Veliki id:Daftar tokoh dengan gelar yang Agung jv:Daftar pamimpin ingkang dipun paringi julukan Ingkang Agung la:Magnus lt:Sąrašas:Žmonės, vadinami Didžiaisiais ja:称号に大が付く人物の一覧 ru:Великий (прозвище) sl:Seznam ljudi z vzdevkom Veliki sv:Lista över personer kallade den store th:รายพระนามกษัตริย์ที่ได้รับสมัญญานามมหาราช vi:Đại đếThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Coordinates | 20°34′00″N103°40′35″N |
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name | Arj Barker |
birth date | August 12, 1974 |
birth place | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
birth name | Arjan Singh Aulakh |
occupation | ActorComedian |
website | http://www.arjbarker.com |
notable role | ''Dave'' on ''Flight of the Conchords }} |
Barker co-wrote and performed in ''The Marijuana-Logues'', an Off-Broadway show in New York, with Doug Benson and Tony Camin. The title of the show was a parody of ''The Vagina Monologues''. NBC gave Barker the lead role for sitcom ''Nearly Nirvana'', originally scheduled for 2004. However, Barker was replaced in the lead role by the show's creator, Ajay Sahgal, and the show never aired.
Arj Barker appeared as the indifferent New Yorker Dave in the HBO sitcom ''Flight of the Conchords'', playing Bret and Jemaine's friend. Arj has subsequently enjoyed success in Australia, and presently resides there.
The episode "Unlucky in Love" won the Annecy 2006 animated film festival Internet Selection. The series also has a planned spin-off called Bouncy the Dog.
! Year | ! Album |
1999 | ''Arj Barker: Issue Were Here'' |
2010 | ''Arj Barker: LYAO'' |
! Year | ! Album |
2006 | |
2008 | |
2010 |
Category:1974 births Category:Living people Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American people of Indian descent Category:Actors from California Category:Indian comedians Category:American people of European descent
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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