User Reviews

Seldom has an ending been so disappointing and ruined a good film as this one.

For most of the way, this was a slick thriller, nicely photographed and nicely acted. Sean Penn is outstanding in here. I like to see him play low-key characters instead of hot-headed sleazeballs. Nicole Kidman also gives a good performance. Sometimes her classic beauty hides the fact she can act.

The story was pretty involving, hard to put down once you've started. My only complaint up to the ending was the obvious plug for the United Nations. This looked a public relations piece for that organization.

However, then came that ending - a real insult to anyone's intelligence. In a nutshell, nobody would go the extremes they went to here to protect a visiting dignitary, using all that manpower and machinery....and then leave him all alone in a room at the end! Are you serious??? It was unbelievably stupid and ruined what had been an entertaining and somewhat- smart film.

For some time I avoided "The Interpreter," [2005] which sadly was to be the final film directed by recently deceased Sydney Pollack. It received lukewarm reviews in the mass media (although Ebert liked it) and generally unappreciative commentary on IMDb. My avoidance turned out to be a mistake. I have since viewed the film several times on video and have admired it more with each viewing. Yes, the pacing is unusually slow for a political thriller. Yes, the relationship between the leads has a weird chemistry and does not end with the usual Hollywood romantic closure/cliché. Yes, the script is talky, very talky even. And, yes, the plot is hard to follow and has some large plausibility holes, particularly in the film's final sequence.

As it happens, though, only the last of these is truly a "weakness," and then mainly to those unfortunately literal-minded film viewers whose aesthetic pleasures are utterly ruined by "logical" inconsistencies in plot construction or resolution. Would the Secret Service, FBI, and U.N. security staff really leave a nearly assassinated leader of a foreign state unattended in a "safe room" immediately after the event? Certainly not, one hopes. But stranger things have "really" happened in the panic following actual assassinations in 20th century American history. Were that not so, the conspiracy theorists would have much less grist for their mills. Regardless, the flaw in logic just doesn't matter much, for the entire plot to assassinate President Zuwani, the dictatorial and ruthless head of Matobo, a fictional African state, is not only a "con" as one of the FBI officials gathers early on in the investigation, it is also a perfect example of a Hitchcockian Maguffin.

Unlike more intellectually simplistic political thrillers, including Pollack's own genre classic "Three Days of the Condor," "The Interpreter" isn't ultimately about the surface subject of its main plot. The plan to assassinate Zuwanie while he delivers a self-exculpatory speech at the U.N. – i.e. what Silvia Broome hears, or claims to have heard, whispered in Ku on a darkened General Assembly floor – is as much what "The Interpreter" is about as "Psycho" is about the theft of $40,000 or "Casablanca" is about the missing letters of transit signed (with ridiculous implausibility) by General De Gaulle.

What "The Interpreter" is about instead is a rich complex of issues that surround and emerge from the working out of its convoluted plot. Very interestingly, it is about the politics of revolution and betrayal in contemporary Africa (taking its main cue from the horrors in Zimbabwe). It is also about the importance of language and communication in a world where children are armed with AK-47s. The film explores the linguistic workings of the U.N. in loving detail and even takes the time to invent and employ a made-up language (the aforementioned "Ku," which Silvia Broome interprets along with uninvented and un-subtitled French). A key witness in the investigation speaks only Portuguese. Moreover the film's climax, comes not with the expected death of Zuwanie but with his having to read - and choke on - the powerful and inspirational words he wrote before he became like the monsters he beheld. In the next to last scene we hear Silvia's voice-over naming Zuwanie's victims as recorded in detail in her dead brother's notebooks, thereby illustrating another unique power of language: bearing historical witness to atrocity. Most of all, "The Interpreter" is about two characters, Nicole Kidman as U.N. interpreter and Matoban ex-patriot Silvia Broome and Sean Penn as Secret Service agent Tobin Keller, wounded by violence done to loved ones and helping each other resist the desire to subject others or themselves to further violence, "a lazy form of grief" as it is defined in one of the film's many memorable phrases.

Supported by the wonderful Catherine Keener as Keller's torch-carrying partner and Pollack himself as the chief of the Secret Service, Kidman and Penn, two of the finest actors of their generation, offer up their usual first-rate performances here, carrying off five scenes of extended dialog wherein they explore each other's hidden facets and discuss such unlikely but arresting topics as the Ku form of justice and whether wanting someone "gone" is or is not the verbal equivalent of wanting him or her "dead." Personally, I'll take such interruptions in the flow of action over the requisite car chase and explosion scenes any day – although the film does have its own interesting versions of the latter as well. All in all, "The Interpreter" is a film that has been seriously underrated and deserves a look from those who appreciate textured screen writing and subtle acting and who, like me, may have been put off by the film's original reception.

With all my respect and admiration for the creators of the movie as well as my concern for the topics of political corruption and ethnic conflicts it raises, I must admit ruefully that even the brilliance of Sean Penn's acting (perfect as he always is) couldn't save "The Interpreter" from going flop in every respect.

First comes the poorly written script with artificially forced scenes that totally undermine the credibility of whatever's happening on screen. How on earth could you imagine an opposition leader of an African country, no matter how small, taking a ride on a street-bus and, what is even more bewildering, discussing political dealings and murders in a pure English with his accuser Nicole Kidman, all this with plenty of, one can assume, English-speaking people around them. Another gem of incongruity in the film is leaving the president of a country all by himself right after an assassination attempt and despite all the efforts to protect him from being killed. These are just a few among the abundance of inconsistencies and strained situations in the script.

The directing adds neither credibility nor suspense at all. It is pretty easy to guess the intentions and further actions of the characters because you have seen all these hackneyed plot twists so many times before. No originality, ingenuity, or finesse one would expect from the creator of "Three days of the Condor" comes out in a below the average handling of the plot development.

This all leaves Kidman's attempts at being believable all but successful and, especially so, in the culminating scene. Where it is supposed to be great emotional acme nothing is felt but an insipid taste of "you've guessed it all" disillusion.

What could have become a clever, topical political thriller turned out to be an average Hollywood flick with no power to awake people's hearts and minds or change attitudes to ethnic cleansing and wars in the real world.

I think this film is slightly underrated.

I think it's a solid political thriller with good character development, adequate casting and a message about the need to preserve one's ideals. Admittedly, there is a lack of chemistry between the two main actors.

The plot is mature and exciting, and takes place in a place rarely seen on screen in this way: inside the UN. It is an impressive part, not least because it functions not only as a fantasy backdrop, but also to give symbolic and practical insight into its work.

The political intrigue, i.e. The intriguing conspiracy, is not the only element of the story, as a personal drama is integrated into it, in order to better understand where our characters come from.

The tension generated by the film, especially in the scene where the titular protagonist almost gets shot, the bus sequence or the final incident at the UN, is very well done.

I love thrillers. I love suspense. I very much like Kidman and Penn. And I like Sidney Pollack's work. But this movie has one of the most undeveloped scripts I've ever seen. I agree wholeheartedly with the reviewer who wrote this script was 2 or 3 drafts away from being ready to film. The trailers lead you to believe Kidman is in danger, is running for her life, but the movie never really comes to this. We never see the secret service, the FBI, the CIA, or the local police go through the investigative process that leads to the revelation at the end of the story. In fact, most of the law enforcement personnel is shown as inept or inadequate, except, of course, for Penn. People get shot but you don't know why, I mean really know. Penn tries to do something with his character, but the script doesn't bring him into focus. At times, he has to look at Kidman dreamily only weeks after his wife's death??? How Kidman got into a room alone with the intended target was preposterous. This movie is Not A Thriller, Not Suspenseful. And the ending is a deflated, run-out-of-gas, illogical, incomplete exercise in nothingness. Again, it annoys me to know that people get paid big money to turn out this kind of un-movie, basically a string of scenes revolving around a conspiracy that lacks intelligence and complexity. Don't bother unless you're a big fan of the stars who do what they can with a Mc-script. My two stars are one for each of them for their effort.

I should have known from the start that this was going to try my patience. In the opening scene a journalist is led into a dilapidated football stadium in a small African country for a meeting. But it's a trap and he is shot to death by a young boy. As he falls to the ground dying he says 'It's OK' to the youngster who has just gunned him to death. I think it's only fair to say that most people would be a little bit less philosophical in this situation. Not many I guess would use their last dying breath to explain to their killer that they understand that the political situation in their country has led them to murder a stranger and that it's understandable and not in any way their fault. What this cretinous little scene does do, however, is indicate, quite accurately, to the audience that the film that they are about to see is going to be worthy and tedious in equal measure. Moreover, as a thriller this movie has about as much edge as a packet of custard creams; actually, on second thoughts, considerably less so.

Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn make for a somewhat tedious screen couple. Everything about the trajectory of their on-screen romance is clichéd and trite. So much so, that it really is difficult to care for either of them. Kidman, the interpreter, is really unconvincing as someone with such a militant background, while Penn's hard agent with a soft centre is, at best, tiresome. The whole back-story about Penn's dead wife was I guess meant to add depth to his character, to give him a vulnerable side, but it really only came across as forced and obvious. The spectacle of Kidman relaxing at home like a shaman playing African pipes is a sight that sadly has the potential to make a cat laugh. As does the supposedly romantic scene where she has a telephone conversation with her protector Penn, both of whom face each other across the street from their respective apartments; it's meant to be poignant but it comes over as seriously cheesy. And when Penn offers to wash the blood from Kidman's face you could be forgiven for suffering a hernia due to uncontrollable laughter, such is the predictable triteness. I think it can only be fair to say that both actors must have been offered a hefty pay cheque for this film; I would very much worry about them if they signed on due to the great story and characterisations. I certainly hope they weren't 'excited by the challenge'.

You may have gathered that I wasn't entirely into this film. It was so safe and middle-of-the road that it singularly failed to provide any thrills, which would have made up for the rubbish central characters. But alas, no. If there was a band that this movie is the equivalent to it would have to be Mike and the Mechanics – dull, weary, faintly ridiculous and inoffensive to the point of offense.