You’ve got to feel bad for the folks behind the new movie “The International”. (Pretty decent Ebert review available here.) It seems promising, sporting Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, and Armin Mueller-Stahl, each of whom is fun to watch, and directed by Tom Tykwer, of “Run, Lola, Run” fame. Unfortunately, I think it will be hard to watch without giggling.
The Problem
The eponymous evil bank at the heart of the movie is going to be difficult to take seriously in light of recent events, on at least two levels:
- Thrillers tend to depend on hyper-competent villians. At the moment, the image of bankers is that of men unable to run their own businesses, let alone branch out into freelance evil.
- Whatever devices Mr. Owen and Miss Watts may use to destroy the bank in the end, it will be tempting to suggest that, had they simply left well enough alone, in a few months the bank would have come knocking on the door of the ECB looking for a bailout, saving everyone a lot of trouble.
Events
I think that when the producers of “The International” were putting the movie together, their risk analysis probably omitted the possibility that the global financial system would melt down, and make the notion of omnipotent bankers look a little silly. There is, in general, a certain futility in trying to outguess the future.
