Imagine for a second a Fleming Bond stripped of glamour and sophistication or a Bourne without the plot device. Imagine the tedium of the bland urban greys and cold metallic blues that make up real intelligence work.
Yeah, sounds terrible doesn’t it. But it’s exactly this that makes Tom Twyker’s ‘The International’ such a draw. The plot is Zeitgeist reality, picking at the nervous tension pervading modern society, surrounding the banking institutions and their less than scrupulous dealings.
In this chilling reality we have grizzled Interpol Agent, Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and his investigation into the illegal dealings of the IBBC (an obvious reference to the BCCI scandal of the late 90s), believed to be brokering arms deals.
After losing a colleague and a potential informant to the bank’s operatives and stymied by the beauracry of his position, Salinger breaks with protocol and heads off on a country spanning mission to thwart their plans.
Owen was never right for Bond. Flatfooted and far too versatile an actor for glossy vacuity, here he seems to relish the irony of an agent with limited powers yet driven by a mania that has caused him trouble in the past. He’s blandly professional; charming in a blunt, fragile way and brings the right side of vulnerability to the superlative action sequences.
Speaking of action, it’s not such a great surprise Twyker’s at the helm. Similarly mismatched for commercial cinema, he brings a perfect blend of clinical kineticism to the edit. There’s a whiff of the choking paranoia of 70s Pakula and the horrible normalcy of Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor. And while his chilly direction means the film sags once the foot comes off the gas, it’s when it’s on that this film really bucks.
Astonishing is one word to describe some of the action in this film; the film evincing an impressive precision in a world of whirligig camera work and choppy editing. He’s one of very few Anti-Bays, and for that alone he should be commended.
In fact it’s rare to see action that actually articulates rather than just entertains. Each location of the film, whether it’s the blank, drizzle of a car park, the stark professionalism of a hit in a Milan square, or the channels of the NY streets expresses the same oppressive atmosphere evident in Twyker’s direction. And in the Guggenheim, Twyker has found a perfect location for a gunfight.
The curving architecture of the building, embracing, yet constricting. Action as expression of mood. Everything from the pure white of its walls, punctured by bullets; the ant-like people streaming, screaming from the floors below as the action takes place on the floors above; assassins mixing in with the confusion of fragmented and reflected images from the video installations and shiny panels lining the walls, screams tour de force filmmaking.
It’s little surprise really when you consider the influence of Krzysztof Kieslowski on Twyker, a similarly dynamic, humanistic director. The ending of the film resonates with his themes, especially moral dilemma and coincidence. Less deus ex machina, more cruel play of fate that gives us a happy ending while twisting the knife even more as the credits roll.
Like Disney meeting Dirty Harry over a Pabst Blue Ribbon or three, a surface examination of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Gran Torino‘ might suggest a film littered with clichés and meandering like that befuddled favourite uncle that always pops up with a story to tell. Well forgive yourself being wrong. Beneath the hood of this simple story there’s a film revving with charm.
The film tells the story of Korean Vet, and retired Ford factory worker, Walt Kowalski. His life is infused with bitterness, suffering the death off his beloved wife, the irritation of a pastor in pampers and rapid ethnic change in the neighbourhood, including septuagenarians hocking tobacco spit further than he can. He’s unloading bile faster than the old carbine rifle he keeps in a basement locker and when gangs begin to encroach on his Hmong neighbours, Sue (Ahney Her) and her brother Thao (Bee Vang), there’s a sense that even Walt will have to take a stand.
Recalling the greatest films of Sam Peckinpah this is an elegiac tale for a world that once was. You can see it in the proud, vehicular perfection of Walt’s coveted Ford Gran Torino. Part of a proud history of blue collar American workers. And Walt takes a quiet joy keeping it in a pristine condition that attracts the greedy eye of his granddaughter, the curiosity of Thao and the evil of the gangbangers that want to initiate him. Even so, it will always be a relic, in the same way that a gunslingers horse was to the first motor car. Except this time it’s the anorexic curves of technologically driven Japanese machines that even Walt’s no-good sons indulge in.
More importantly it represents a way of being. A muscle car masculinity if you will. While some might be shocked or appalled by the verbal virulence of Walt, the trite conditioned response of the tediously liberal, others will struggle to not find humour in the deadpan cannons fired out from his porch or at the barber shop; the funniest of which comes as he gives Thao his first lesson of manhood.
Whatever you might think, Walt’s attitude towards the multi-culturalisation of America is less about twisted amorality (he is after all of Polish descent) and more about what has been lost to him. The death of his wife cost him his anchor. That which grounded him, and kept the horrors of his past at bay. His apparent bigotry is him lashing out at a world he finds hard to understand. A more violent, impropriety world. Where good manners are lacking, and a man is more coward than lion.
While his dealings with the Hmong family next door seem banal, the dialogue has a ring of improvised, awkward truth about it. And there’s a genuine delight at seeing the slow erosion of that granite face as he warms to the Hmong and their culture. A change that might repel when presented as saccharine Hallmark card, but with the profound weight of Clint’s persona and force of will behind it, it’s impossible not to be touched by it.
Soon Walt’s ethnic slurs lose their bite, first through Sue and her youthful wit and seemingly resolute spirit (the shattering of this is one of the film’s genuine surprises), and then with Thao. And as the film makes its move down a darker path we see these outbursts for what they are; a protective barrier around Walt keeping people at bay, much like an ancient cowboy’s refusal to take on a sidekick, or a grizzled detective denying that offer of help. They, like Walt, as he admonishes himself for involving himself in the gang trouble, know the damage that can be done, and the pain that can be caused by people getting too close.
While the vigilante has become little more than a bolt-on to the action genre in recent times, Walt is less about the violent redemption and an exultation of the earlier boot heel justice and macho one-liner (though forgive yourself relishing one as punchy as, “ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while that you shouldn’t have fucked with? That’s me”). This is a fond farewell to Clint’s wielding of cinematic persona, plucking the best bits of his William Munny, Dirty Harry and The Man With No Name and suffusing them through a masterly, yet simply directed film.
As we see and also hear in the final few shots of the movie, like the Gran Torino, they don’t make them quite like Clint Eastwood anymore.
- None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you.
- You're locked up in here with me.
A ferocious and fan favourite threat from a masked sociopath, but taken out of context, these lines of dialogue from Zack Snyder’s ‘Watchmen’ also shed light on one of the controlling themes of this adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s seminal work of superhero deconstruction. That for all its meditation on God, fate, and destiny, it is time that holds humanity prisoner.
In fact, time is everywhere in this film. Both in the main and the minutiae. As a cinematic feat, Snyder has outdone himself. Cramming even a modicum of the narrative complexity shown in the original graphic novel into a 2.5 hour movie would be a tremendous accomplishment. The fact he has done so much more is nothing short of a miracle. Truncated in length certainly, but rarely is there a scene short of emotion and that’s to be applauded.
The opening credit sequence alone is a work of art, wowing us with a Golden Age aesthetic that sets up the later mix of stripped down 70s cinema and the colour pop of modern CGI. It evinces a sophistication and confidence in editing that almost mocks the Herculean task Snyder has taken on.
Propelling us into an alternate history of the film, Snyder effortlessly moves from the brutal dance of Nat King Cole’s ’Unforgettable’ and the murder of the Comedian/Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), before time shifting back to the 40s and 50s and the early heroics of our heroes predecessors, the Crimebusters. Then we’re in the 70s and the rise of the Watchmen (one of many slight alterations that serves our understanding rather than denigrates the source material) before we’re back in the 80s again, and the present day.
Intermixed with this are twists on famous historical events, whether it be the famous kiss on V-J Day, cheekily turned into a Sapphic tryst by the sultry heroine Silhouette, or JFK’s handshake with the glowing blue God, Dr Manhattan on the grounds of the White House, a rifle crack away from being assassinated by the Comedian from the grassy knoll.
As a cinematic sequence it’s a tour de force. Bursting with visual information and comprehension, both beautiful and perfectly paced, this is six minutes of Snyder slamming home the movie’s gambit: a firm affirmation of cinema’s mantra, ’Show, don’t tell’. Repeat viewings of the film will reward audiences with a wealth of references to the narrative complexity of the original novel, including the recurring ink blot and smiley face motifs and sly expressions of the story’s themes.
But more importantly the film manages to fix our heroes and their predecessors in a living, breathing history as pop culture icons; glorified in Warhol artwork or vilified in back alley graffiti as vigilantes. Here politics goes under the spotlight with the unpleasant hypocrisy of Nixon and his Keene Act, outlawing the majority while advocating those that serve the government.
The aforementioned Comedian is one of these heroes. A leering killer with the face of Clark Gable, he’s happy to take any black ops job his country and President throws at him, fuelled by a darkly comic perception of humanity and the paranoid tensions between the US and Russia.
His death kicks off the film’s main plot and the suspicions of Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a man swimming in the social mire, both disgusted and sustained by it and now obsessed with the idea that somewhere amongst it all there is someone gunning for his colleagues, including his old friend Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre/Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman) and Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode). What he actually uncovers is a plot that could either sink humanity forever or save it. A rather hoary conceit if handled badly, but thankfully Snyder has surrounded himself with a cast ready to support his fidelity to the source novel.
It’s Haley’s Rorschach that truly amazes, articulating a seething dichotomy of ferocious adult and neglected child even beneath the shifting mask. So good is his performance you crave the things Snyder had to cut or alter- the baptism of fire, the origin of his mask. However, it’s his arc that is one of the mos complete, the most satisfying; ending on a note of such tragic poignancy to make you forget he’s surrounded by gaudy capes.
Not to denigrate their work mind you. At the low end of an impressive scale we have Malin Akerman. Nigh on identical to the novel’s Silk Spectre, but saddled with some of Snyder’s sillier superhero commentary. Nipples on a Veidtsuit are one thing, but striking superhero poses don’t make up for a loss in feisty. While her romance with Nite Owl is buoyed by Wilson’s bumbling charms, their sex scene is more panto pornographic than erotic. Slapping it with a song as on point as Hallelujah is one of Snyder’s few serious missteps.
Casting Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian certainly wasn’t. As with Hayley’s Rorschach, there was always a danger that cinema would turn the repugnant into the purely iconic, but thankfully Morgan is gleefully wicked through and through. Flashbacks to pivotal events in his life form the dark pool from which we dip into the rest of the characters in the movie and Morgan detonates that thick jawed charm in every moment. He’s the chaos that slams up against the cool, calculating precision of Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias, and while there’s an odd hint of the Germanic in that voice, it’s diffused through a curious mix of Peter O’Toole and Bowie’s alien distance. Aloof, almost disdainful, but left with a mountain of exposition in the climax he does a sterling job.
But it’s with Billy Crudup’s Dr Manhattan that we have our most interesting character. Snyder keeping almost intact arguably the most famous chapter from the novel. It’s a humanising sequence for a man that has shed all but a fraction of his humanity and you can hear every iota of this in Crudup’s cooly detached voice; emotionless, yet somehow pulsating with emotion. You could say that with some of Moore’s dialogue Snyder would have been better shearing than saving, but with Crudup he has the perfect mouthpiece, sending that epic prose soaring.
It’s with one of these lines that we see how transcendent a narrative Watchmen truly is. While it’s up for debate whether Snyder has improved or betrayed the original climax to the story, and it’s probably the only place his slo-mo as dramatization of the comic panel fails, giving us crappy wire-fu compared to the more visceral, grand guignol of the earlier action, it’s here that the temporal nature of the narrative is solidified.
Manhattan kisses Laurie goodbye, softly considering the possibility of creating new life on another world. Though God as a concept has been punctured, the fact these words are spoken by an entity so in control of time, in a story that plays so deliciously with it, you have to wonder if the players in this intellectually stimulating, visually stunning near masterpiece have not just been ditched by a higher power, doomed, as the final shot suggests, to repeat their mistakes in the same cycles of war and death that were the Comedians favourite punch lines.
