“The International” is a paranoid suspense thriller about a banking enterprise so corrupt, it that makes organized crime look benign, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts and Directed by Tom Tykwer.

Though not as action-packed as some thrillers, “The International” is noteworthy for its unusually scenic and architecturally dazzling locations. A key scene in Istanbul, around a mosque and across rooftops is a highlight. But the most captivating sequence is a lengthy shoot-out at a most unexpected New York cultural institution.

Clive Owen plays Louis Salinger, a rumpled Interpol agent, formerly of Scotland Yard, who's obsessed with the case he continues to work on: trying to expose a high-profile, obscenely powerful financial institution's role in an international arms-dealing ring. He's teamed on the case with Eleanor Whitman, a Manhattan assistant district attorney played by Naomi Watts.

IBBC, the Luxembourg bank at the center of the movie, resembles the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a Pakistan operation that conducted a reign of terror for three decades until 1991. But citing historical precedent is hardly necessary now when banking misdeeds are front and center in all our lives.

Director Tom Tykwer, after stalling with “Heaven” and “Perfume,” returns to the 1998 breakthrough form of his “Run, Lola, Run,” goosing things along in high style. He uses architecture and design in unusual and startling ways, making for a sleek-looking tale. But there are convoluted patches within this complex conspiracy scenario. Tykwer's cinematic virtuosity often has exceeded his narrative grasp. But if he has little instinct for relationship or conversation, he has a keen eye for visual metaphor.

In the meantime, Eric Singer's screenplay champions intrepid investigators, but it never invests us in their success: we know far too little about the main characters and the big picture to care. And the script has far too many wooden or self-conscious lines of dialogue to help us get lost in the Byzantine plot. There's ample external conflict, but precious little in the way of real dramatic tension or emotional engagement.

His story starts out well, catching our attention with the bank's deceptive and shady practices and building up a healthy dose of paranoia as well. The problem is the screenplay then lets itself off far too easily. Instead of focusing on how the bank creates slaves-to-debt and how the whole process works, the movie just vaguely and complicatedly brushes over those issues in favor of lazy, generic plotting. Salinger and Whitman soon find that their best option is pinning a murder on IBBC; just you would think a major bank could do better than hiring such an easily track-able killer. And where the movie really goes wrong is the conclusion, which doesn't go into how the bank is actually taken down as much as it just satisfies the audience's need for bloodlust.