प्लॉट

An Interpol agent attempts to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring.

In The International, Interpol Agent Louis Salinger and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman are determined to bring to justice one of the world's most powerful banks. Uncovering illegal activities including money laundering, arms trading, and the destabilization of governments, Salinger and Whitman's investigation takes them from Berlin to Milan to New York and to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as the bank will stop at nothing - even murder - to continue financing terror and war.—production

The Interpol Agent Louis Salinger and his partner are investigating the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC). This investigation is with with the District Attorney, Eleanor Whitman, from Manhattan in a two hundred million dollars illegal business of weapons trading. They schedule a meeting with an insider informer from IBBC at the Central Station in Berlin; however his partner is mysteriously killed after the encounter. Salinger finds the identity of the informer when he sees that the Vice President of Acquisitions André Clement had died in a car accident. Salinger and Whitman head to Milan where they meet the politician Umberto Calvini, who is a big arms manufacturer, and he explains that IBBC is interested in buying the missile guiding system that he produces in his factory. When Calvini is murdered by a sniper in a political rally, Salinger and Whitman head to New York following the killer and later to Istanbul, and disclose a scheme of arms supply and destabilization of governments to make their nations slaves of debt. Further, the bank is protected by legal systems and only if Salinger crosses the line he might bring some justice to the corrupt system.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Louis Salinger (Clive Owen), of Interpol, and Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), an Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan, are investigating the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC), which funds activities such as money laundering, terrorism, arms trading, and the destabilization of governments. Eleanor has an agent Thomas Schumer working in Berlin along with Salinger. Schumer makes contact with an IBBC insider who is willing to trade info on the bank's illicit activities. Schumer drops dead immediately after the meeting, apparently from a heart attack, but Salinger is convinced that Schumer was murdered by an unseen assassin, working for IBBC.

Hours later, the informant, Andre Clement is also killed in an auto accident. Salinger finds inconsistencies in IBBC chairman Skarssen's statement that Andre was with him on the morning of the accident in Luxemburg (when clearly, he was in Berlin meeting Schumer). Salinger's efforts to meet Skarssen are resisted by Skarssen's lawyer who manages to get the police report changed to erase the inconsistency of statements.

Eleanor contacts Clement's wife & finds out that the IBBC arms deal was being conducted via Umberto Calvini in Milan.

Salinger's and Whitman's investigation takes them from Berlin to Milan, where the IBBC assassinates Umberto Calvini, an arms manufacturer who is an Italian prime ministerial candidate. This was done as Calvini was moving away from a deal with the IBBC to supply them with $ 200 MM worth of missile guidance parts. Before his assassination, Calvini meets Eleanor and Salinger & reveals that IBBC has purchased missiles from China & Pre-sold them to Middle East, contingent upon them having the guidance systems, which Calvini's company is the one of 2 firms in the world that manufacture. The IBBC's objective is to control the debt created by the conflict that is fueled by the missiles.

The bank's assassin diverts suspicion to a local assassin with political connections, who is promptly killed by a corrupt policeman. Salinger and Whitman get a lead on the second assassin, but the corrupt policeman shows up again and orders them out of the country. But before this Salinger & Eleanor establish that the IBBC assassin is wearing a leg brace & would have to show it to airport security. At the airport they are able to check the security camera footage for clues and follow a suspect to New York.

In New York, Salinger and Whitman are met by two New York Police Department (NYPD) detectives, Iggy Ornelas and Bernie Ward, who have a photograph of the assassin's face when he arrived in New York airport. Salinger, Ornelas, and Ward locate Dr. Isaacson to whose practice the assassin's leg brace has been traced. They find the assassin and follow him to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Jonas Skarssen, the chairman of the IBBC, reveals to his senior men White and Wexler that the bank had Calvini killed so that they could deal with his sons to buy guidance systems for missiles in which the bank has invested. Since the bank knows that Salinger and Whitman are close to finding their assassin, they send a hit team to kill him at a meeting between him and his handler, Wexler. Wexler leaves and is arrested by Ornelas. As Salinger speaks to the assassin, a spectacular gunfight at the Guggenheim erupts when a number of gunmen attempt to kill them with automatic weapons. They escape, but the assassin is mortally wounded.

In interrogation, Wexler, a former Stasi colonel, explains to Salinger that the IBBC is practically untouchable because of its utility to terrorist organizations, drug cartels, governments, and powerful corporations of all complexions. Even if he succeeds in bringing the IBBC down there are hundreds of other banks which will replace them. If Salinger wants justice, he needs to go outside the system, and Wexler indicates a willingness to help. In Italy, Salinger tells the Calvini brothers of the IBBC's responsibility for their father's murder, prompting them to cancel the deal with the bank and have White killed.

Salinger then accompanies Wexler to Istanbul, where Skarssen is buying the crucial components from their only other manufacturer. Salinger attempts to record the conversation so that he can obstruct the deal by proving to the buyers that the missiles will be useless, but he ultimately fails. Both Wexler and Skarssen are then killed by a hit-man contracted by Enzo and Mario Calvini to avenge their father's murder by the bank. Salinger is left stunned, his investigation, pursuit, and determination to bring down the IBBC, have led him to nothing. During the closing credits, it is indicated that the bank is successfully continuing with its operations despite the death of its Chairman-as Skarssen had predicted to Salinger before he was killed.

However, with the new and more aggressive chairman, it is hinted that the IBBC's increased expansion and aggression will ultimately lead to its downfall, as shown by the last panel, revealing the beginnings of a United States Senate investigation, headed by Whitman.