BEFORE: OK, it's not even funny how little is left in this year. I'm 58 movies away from finishing, and despite my best efforts to cut back, I've still got half of September and all of October to get through, and the new estimate is that I'll have just 15 slots for November and December, can I get to a Thanksgiving movie and a couple Christmas movies? I'm not sure, I might have to take Thanksgiving off this year, I think I only have 1 potential appropriate movie anyway. If I can't figure out soon what to watch, then maybe 5 movies in November and 10 in December? Or the other way around? I don't know, but I really have to get cracking on this.
Naomi Watts carries over from "Allegiant".
THE PLOT: An Interpol agent attempts to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring.
AFTER: This one seemingly has it all - international intrigue, a banking scandal being actively investigated jointly by NYPD and Interpol, and a hit-man traveling around the world, taking out anyone who dares to investigate the scandal or tries to supply the authorities with evidence abou it. But now I wonder if it tried to do TOO much, like would this even be the way that a scandal would break or would be investigated? Honestly, I have no idea. AND it's also got my second-favorte Turkish actor in it - come on, I know you know which one is still my favorite.
But my point is that this is a BANKING film that wants really badly to be a SPY film, and, well, it's just not. There's only so much that you can do to make detective work interesting, and it's darn near impossible to make it thrilling, while spies get to have all the fun, they get to travel around the world, confront viillains in their volcano-based lairs and then once they work their way out of the clever killing device that the villain strapped them to before they walked away because they had a previous engagement, they get to have sex with the beautiful girl who was being held hostage or was the villain's side-piece before the much more attractive secret agent came along. Or so I've heard.
Instead here, we've got people meeting in cabs near the train station in Berlin, and making phone calls to next of kin once people turn up dead, but somebody's got to do that, darn it. Going through airport security footage to try to find the assassin catching his flight, that's a really tedious task that would probably take DAYS or even weeks if they hadn't caught a break and realized that the guy was wearing an orthopedic thing on his leg. Well, I guess you take your lucky breaks where you find them. And it's Friday the 13th today, I wish I could have found a film with more of a tie-in, but OK, sure, luck helps them break the case and track down the assassin in New York.
Anyway, the film is about a powerful bank (IBBC) that has decided to branch out from its usual business of savings accounts and loans to get into arms dealing and money laundering and the destabilization of certain governments. Why? Because it benefits them to do so, and if you think countries spend a lot of money, just wait until they're at war, then they REALLY start spending to buy arms, and they're willing to go into debt. And the bank makes money when they go into debt, it's diabolical but there are people in this world who make more profit during wartime, and in the months that follow when they can charge a country interest on their debt.
The bank also takes a hand to the Italian election process, by assassinating a candidate who is also an arms manufacturer - so, he's their competition? Honestly I wasn't clear exactly why the bank had this guy rubbed out, or was it just to cause chaos? Or did they have a candidate they liked better? As America found out a couple months ago, you can't just kill the candidate you don't like, because if anything, that's going to unite his party behind him if he survives and make him a martyr if he doesn't. Either way, it's not going to bring about the change you want to see in the world if you kill one of the candidates.
The combined team of Interpol agents and NYPD undercover detectives follows him to the Guggenheim Museum, for (FINALLY) an action scene. A big shootout, which is really not a great idea when there's so much valuable art on display. I'm pretty sure that painting didn't have a bullet hole in it before. I was just reading on Wikipedia, though, about how they only filmed in the lobby of the famous NYC museum, not anywhere near the art. They built a replica of the inside of the Guggenheim inside a giant warehouse in Germany. Wow, that's a nice trick, I would not have guessed it, but sure, it makes sense. There's no way that museum staff is going to let a shoot-out scene take place during daylight hours, even if no real bullets were used. At one point a giant art chandelier is shot on purpose and goes crashing several stories to the floor, and that was totally CGI, not real at all. They deep-faked it, finally we're using CGI for things that matter, and it's so good now that if you didn't know, you wouldn't be able to tell.
During the shoot-out, another NYPD detective takes the bank's security advisor, Wexler, into custody, and Salinger, the Interpol agent, interrogates him about what the bank is up to. Wexler says that the bank is so well connected to drug cartels and terrorist operations that it's essentially untouchable. So Salinger instead goes back to Italy and tells the assassinated candidate's sons about who ordered the hit on their father. Well, if Salinger can't take down the bankers himself, maybe he can persuade someone else to do it for him. And after a failed attempt to wiretap and record the banker buying missile guidance systems in Istanbul, that's exactly what happens, the Italians hire a guy. So, really, he should have taken the deal, because it's better to be in prison and alive, right?
But the bank's just going to hire someone else, and continue on with its shady business, right? Only now going forward they're being watched a bit more closely, will that change anything, though?
Also starring Clive Owen (last seen in "The Song of Names"), Armin Mueller-Stahl (last seen in "Eastern Promises"), Ulrich Thomsen (last seen in "The Weight of Water"), Brian F. O'Byrne (last seen in "The Wonder"), Jack McGee (last seen in "Just Before I Go"), Felix Solis (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Nilaja Sun (last seen in "The Bourne Legacy"), Haluk Bilginer (last seen in "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"), James Rebhorn (last seen in "The Box"), Alessandro Fabrizi (last seen in "The Burnt Orange Heresy"), Luca Barbareschi, Patrick Baladi (last seen in "Rush" (2013)), Jay Villiers (last seen in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"), Michel Voletti (last seen in 'Down and Out in Beverly Hills"), Fabrice Scott (last seen in "Marie Antoinette"), Axel Milberg (last seen in "The Fifth Estate"), Steven Randazzo (last seen in "For Love or Money"), Tibor Feldman (last seen in "Arbitrage"), Remy Auberjonois (last seen in "The Normal Heart"), Ian Burfield (last seen in "Criminal"), Ben Whishaw (last seen in "Women Talking"), Ty Jones (last seen in "Clifford the Big Red Dog"), Thomas Morris (last seen in "Tristan + Isolde"), Oliver Trautwein, Luigi Di Fiore, Verena Schonlau, Laurent Spielvogel (last seen in "Midnight in Paris'), Giorgio Lupano, Loris Loddi (last seen in "House of Gucci"), Lucian Msamati (last seen in "See How They Run"), Benjamin Wandschneider, Marco Gambino, Luca Calvani (last seen in "When In Rome"), Gerolamo Fancellu, Darren Pettie (last seen in "Taking Woodstock"), Georges Bigot, Robert Salerno, Amy Kwolek (last seen in "Anonymous"), Elizabeth Watson.
RATING: 5 out of 10 petient records at the orthopedist's office
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