The International is hyped as being a relevant film in these times of global financial crisis. It is, after all, a thriller about the nefarious and illegal activities of a multinational bank. Instead of achieving the hoped-for timeliness, however, the film ends up a throwback to seventies-era paranoid thrillers, when the Watergate scandal made audiences deeply suspicious of political and social institutions. Packaged as a thriller, the film downplays the responsibility of financial giants in the current global financial meltdown.

The International of the title is the Luxembourg-based International Bank of Business and Credit which, according to District Attorney Eleanor Whitfield (Naomi Watts), has become “the bank of choice for transnational crime” and is engaged in money laundering and capital flight. Whitfield, along with Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) have been working for months to bring down the IBBC.

The two think they’ve caught a break when an IBBC insider tells one of their agents that the bank is buying millions of dollars worth of missile guidance systems. Unfortunately, the agent and the insider are killed under suspicious circumstances before they can reveal more, leaving the two investigators one clue: talk to Umberto Calvini, head of one of the world’s largest arms corporations.

So far, so good. The filmmakers have set up what seems to be an intriguing financial thriller about the questionable practices of big banks. Unfortunately, the film makes a major misstep by revealing its big secret much too early. This removes a lot of the suspense from the rest of the film, leaving it feeling anti-climactic until its last act, when another insider surfaces and Salinger is finally able to act against the bank. In fact, the film’s main flaw is its weak script (by first-time screenwriter Eric Singer), which sets up an intriguing premise then torpedoes it with poor plotting and weakly developed characters. The script also has an annoying tendency to make the proceedings more convoluted than they have to be.

Fortunately, director Tom Tykwer (still best known for the exhilarating Run Lola Run) is up to the task of breathing some life into this flawed script. He delivers a briskly–paced thriller that avoids the too-quick editing and hand-held camera work of the Bourne movies. Tykwer even succeeds in giving the film some visual wit: Salinger runs across a side street to try and cut off a car, only to be confronted, when he reaches the main road, of row upon row of identical-looking cars.

He also shows some facility in handling action scenes, as shown in his staging of the film’s major set-piece: a shoot-out at the famed Guggenheim museum in New York, in which thugs hired by the IBBC try to kill Salinger and a hitman about to turn against the bank. Although the scene as a whole is confusing, parts of it do succeed in being exciting and suspenseful.

Of the film’s two leads, Clive Owen delivers the better performance. His hard-bitten face is ideal for action films, and he delivers here. Owen also succeeds in deepening his paper-thin character slightly by communicating Salinger’s desperation and bone-deep tiredness. This is more than can be said for Naomi Watts, who while not bad, is unexceptional. Watts fails to give Whitfield any depth or personality. In fact, she seems to be giving the same performance she gave in her breakthrough film, The Ring.

The International’s IBBC was reportedly modeled after the real-life scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a bank founded in Pakistan and registered in Luxembourg, which was found by regulators to be involved in arms trafficking, money laundering, support of terrorism and sale of nuclear technologies, among other disreputable and illegal practices. The scandal that took place in the 1990s undoubtedly became a bit of a cautionary tale of how financial institutions have become more powerful than governments. In one scene in The International, the IBBC is even shown talking to the head of an African revolutionary group and offering him funding for his group to rise to power. In exchange, of course, the bank gains hold on the new rule should the group succeed to topple the old. This only exposes the gross disrepute of an avaricious system where there are no permanent friends nor foes; only permanent interests.

One reason The International fails to connect with audiences (the movie was not successful at the US box office), is because the idea of a monolithic bank powerful enough to co-opt police forces and stage shoot-outs with impunity seems dated at a time when banks are laying off hundreds of workers and begging their governments for handouts (which their officers then splurge on luxuries and lavish bonuses for themselves).

The movie does succeed in being relevant in one significant way. It underscores the means by which the financial oligarchy rakes superprofits and overaccumulates capital. As a character notes, the IBBC is after the control of debt. When you control the debt, you control everything, he says, adding that this is the essence of banking: “to make us all slaves to debt.” The film also exposes transnational banks as shadowy behind-the-scenes puppet masters bending police and governments to their will.

At a time when the global financial system is in meltdown precisely because of banks’ predatory practices directed against the working class and the rest of the poor people, it seems the more relevant message is not in the means but in the motive. And the best option for the working class and the rest of the disadvantaged peoples of the world is to oppose the attacks on them through organized actions.