The Interpreter

If Sydney Pollack’s big budget political thriller is not as compelling as his comparable 1975 hit, Three Days of the Condor this is in part because that film which set a bench-mark for the genre has spawned so many descendants. Even while then there is a decided familiarity to the material, Pollack gives it his characteristically polished treatment.

Nicole Kidman play U.N interpreter Silvia Broome who overhears what she believes is a plan to assassinate the President of a fictional African nation, Matobo, Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron) who is due to address the General Assembly in a few days. She alerts the authorities but the Secret Service agent assigned to the case, Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) doubts her story, more so when it is revealed that Silvia herself had been formerly been involved with anti-Zuwanie rebels in Matobo where she grew up.

Of course given the casting we know where the story is going to end up, but Pollack, in what turned out to be his last feature film (he also appears as Keller's boss, Jay), brings it home with typically professional style. Even if the plot with its plethora of characters at times gets more than a little difficult to follow it never lingers long enough to be an issue. On the upside it eschews the improbable contrivances which often mar the genre and keeps the tension ratcheted as far as it can go without losing its real-world credibility and its niftycross-cultural philosophising .

Nicole Kidman, sporting an Afrikaans-type accent, and Sean Penn both give excellent performances with the script by Charles Randolph, Scott Frank and Steven Zaillian giving them substantial back-stories to work with. The romance between the two is a little on the cheesy side, particularly in the final scene, but once again Pollack and his writers take the formula and give it some credibility so that the unfolding connection between the two engages our sympathies and mollifies the clichéd aspect somewhat.

The Interpreter is unapologetically mainstream Hollywood entertainment but in a good way.

 

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