The Interpreter

Can someone please explain 'The Interpreter' to me?

I caught this film on ITV2 the other evening, and remember when this film was first released how intrigued I was by the premise with its Hitchock and 'The Conversation' influences along with the combined force of Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman being directed by the very reliable Sydney Pollack.

Unfortunately, my hopes for the film were dashed, by the sad mish-mash of what I did see.  A would be thriller that was not thrilling, devoid of sexual chemistry between its two leads (when it dearly needed it) and what descends into a love letter for more peaceful times of diplomacy and pre-Apartheid South Africa.

You could call it a mess, but that would be doing a disservice to the word or films that truly were - 'Showgirls' and 'Dude, Where's My Car?' - Nicole Kidman saunters around pouting forever, doing her best Meryl Streep impression (remember Pollack directed Streep in 'Out of Africa') with another voice to her ever burdgeoning collection, it is unfortunate for an actress who can be so good only really appears in one good film for every bad four.  That is not a terrific ratio for a Hollywood star, all stars appear in some crap but not like her; 'The Stepford Wives', 'Australia', that piece of crap with Daniel Craig - she is an Oscar winning actress that makes some bad choices.  This film came hot on the heels from her winning performance in 'The Hours', likewise Penn in 'Mystic River', so you are allowed some rope to hang yourself with. But a film that ceremonially rips off a Coppola classic and does not deem itself worthy to acknowledge such a thing is bemusing.

Penn, is another actor who gets on my nerves. All method, but no posturing, here he plays a widower who comes back to work just two weeks after his wife's untimely death in a car crash - what really, your bosses at the Secret Service, thought you had grieved enough to work at the United Nations after such a long process.  He broods, he is angry, he raises his voice; he is the man to Kidman's woman, we are very clear about that - but the love interest that would appear in any other film involving an agent and the person he is protecting, never materialises - even the suggestion of a kiss in the epilogue never comes.

To be a director of thrillers, you have to keep things away from the audience. Here Pollack decides to let us know everything that is going on, this is okay if there is a final twist. Not on this occasion, what we see is what we get - there are two scares; the mask at the window and the gunman, both done sufficiently. But the bus explosion is done badly, once Penn tells his boys to get off the bus - you know the bad thing will happen.  You also have to be a bit of a bastard to your audience, and not respect them so much - he likes to give them answers before necessary.  A thriller can be fun, and well surprising.

If someone could interpret this film as anything other than a PR coup for the UN (this was the first film to allow scenes to be shot inside of it), you would have thought a better script would have been delivered.

What remains is a film that flatters to deceive,and leaves you feeling aggreived for wasting your time in watching it.  Too long to make its point, after there is no point to be delivered.  And a waste of Catherine Keener's talents also, who is nothing more than a lumbering sidekick to Penn the brooder.