The Interpreter

Review by: Grant

A Well-Made, Well-Acted, Enjoyable Film
The movie opens in New York City. Well, sort of. It opens at the U.N.



Nicole Kidman plays Silvia Broome, a U.N. interpreter who, one night while returning late to pick up some of her belongings, overhears two men plotting to kill Edmond Zuwanie, the president of Matobo, a war-torn county in Africa. Two Secret Service agents, Tobin Keller, played by Sean Penn, and Dot Woods, played by Catherine Keener, are called in to investigate.



From the beginning, Keller doubts the veracity of Broome’s story. She seems to be holding back information, telling him only partial truths. His suspicion only intensifies as he learns more about her.



Nonetheless, the director of the Secret Service, eager to avoid having a world leader assassinated on U.S. soil—even if it’s not U.S. soil—urges Keller to take the threat to Zuwanie seriously. Accordingly, he does. The movie that follows feels, in many respects, like a blend of the following movies: Stake Out, The Fugitive, Spy Game, Arlington Road, and The Pelican Brief.



Having said that, I do have to give the movie some props for originality. For starters, this was the first movie ever filmed inside the U.N. There is both a cultural mystique and an architectural dynamic to the U.N. that gives the movie a captivating quality. The movie also contains one of the best sequences of humor / action / suspense / drama I have ever seen in a movie of this genre. I don’t want to spoil it for you in the least, so I won’t. When you see it, you’ll know what I’m talking about.



The writing is very good . . . which is no surprise given that Steven Zaillian was one of the three scribes attached to the project. (Zaillian’s screenwriting credits include Clear and Present Danger, Schindler’s List, and Searching for Bobby Fischer.) Oh, sure, there are a few interchanges of dialogue that gave me cause to roll my eyes, but there are also more than a few interchanges that gave me cause to utter an approving “ooh”, as well. (Examples: Keller’s discerning reply to Broome when she says she feels disappointment with Zuwanie’s leadership: “That’s a lover’s word.” And later in the film when Broome asserts that “Vengeance is a lazy form of grief.”) It’s always refreshing when movies reward attentive viewing.



Conversely, it’s irritating when they try to sell us on tender moments. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t buying the dramatic hug scene. This Pavlovian dog no longer gets misty eyed on false command. I require more than the crescendo of an overwrought string section to believe that two characters have made a heart connection. (I would prefer, say, adequate build-up in the plot.) At that moment I began to squirm in my seat a bit, fearing that I was in for another one of those all-too-common movies that completely loses its focus in the last half hour and trades deft filmmaking for an insulting barrage of slip-shoddiness.



fortunately, my fear was unfounded. The Interpreter is a well-made, well-acted, enjoyable film—right through to the very end.



GRANT = “to see”

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