In my preview, I likened The International to the Bourne movies or the Bond movies, but after closer inspection, and two hours, I have to admit that it was more like Syriana or another political thriller. But Clive Owen's Lou Salinger is still a man with a mission, willing to pursue truth at all costs, even while those on his right and his left fall to the enemy's bullets.

With the exception of one tremendously executed, passion-packed explosion of a scene, the movie's violence is mostly understood, even bigger-picture. That is to say, the violence of the film revolves around the cutthroat formulas of capitalism, wealth, and even terror. While that scene, shot within a life-size replica of the Guggenheim Museum, bears the finest of battles, it's the rare fast-moving part. What Tom Tykwer has achieved in direction is a movie that ratchets up the suspense but rarely provides us with an emotional payoff. So, from that respect, this wasn't the film that I expected.

"Sometimes a man can meet his destiny on the road that he took to avoid it." Owen's Salinger directs this challenge to one of the International Bank of Business and Credit head honchos, and in the end, he finds it directed right back at him. Here, in Tykwer's movie, in the personae displayed by Owen and Naomi Watts, we see what it looks like for one person to bear the weight of the world's wrongs, and to consider what happens when you look into the abyss and the abyss speaks back... even if no one else is listening.

Watching the film, I saw a situation where two people are challenging what everyone else is seeing, questioning what everyone else is calling "right," and demanding different answers. And for this, I found myself considering The Pelican Brief, or Contact, movies where the common beliefs were all wrong and right was considered heresy... sort of like religious convictions, in some circles. But when it comes down to it, the movie is more about the need for money, power, arms trading, and the handling of debt than it is about some grand idea. So forgive me if I stop waxing philosophic...

The movie was okay. It would've been grand if they would have shot up the Guggenheim about ten more times or if it had been a globe-trotting whodunit. But there was little action and no great reveal at the end. And the bad guys don't really get their comeuppance.

In the end, The International would just like to prove that justice isn't any more black and white than the truth is. Sorry, folks, but I will politely disagree.