The International (Tom Tykwer, 2009)

The International (Tom Tykwer, 2009)If last week’s Friday the 13th remake/reboot/whatever-it-was welcomed us back to the ’80s, Tykwer’s corporate-evil thriller is yet another welcome back to the ’70s, with its stylish, yet paranoid vision of international banking as a bastion for world-dominating malice. While the film gets a kick of delirious energy from a truly stunning shoot-out at Manhattan’s Guggenheim Museum (recreated on a German soundstage) that is good enough to overcome the fact that it makes no narrative sense, the film is more of a slow burn, winding its way to an appropriately ambiguous denouement that suggests evil will always persist. (Hollywood Jewel 16, Waco, TX)