Movie Review: The Interpreter

Actors: Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Richard Gere, Max Minghella, Catherine Keener
Director: Sydney Pollack
Story: Martin Stellman and Brian Ward
Screenplay: Charles Randolph, Scott Frank and Steven Zaillian
MPAA Rating: PG 13
Distributor: Universal Pictures

Rating: 3/5

Who knew Sydney Pollack still had it in him? Pollack, the veteran director behind “Out of Africa,” returns to the thriller genre that served him so well with hits like “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Firm.” In recent years, Pollack’s output has repeatedly flatlined (”Random Hearts”), but that all changes with “The Interpreter,” a smartly mounted thriller that seizes the moment it hits the screen, and takes the audience for quite a sharp, taut ride.

Both Universal Pictures and Sydney Pollack are back this weekend with “The Interpreter” after extended hiatuses from the box office. Universal returns after an 11-week break, and Pollack is back in the director’s chair after a six-year respite.

“The Interpreter” is the sort of film that Hollywood rarely makes anymore. It’s intelligent, it takes place in a recognizable world, and quite some time goes by before anything blows up. Essentially targeted at adults ‘The Interpreter’ is the last of such releases before the potential summer blockbusters begin arriving.

‘The Interpreter’ takes place in an intelligent world, and lot of time passes before something really happens. One late night while retrieving some personal items, U.N. African interpreter Silvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) accidentally overhears an assassination plot involving a controversial African dignitary in town for a visit.

Calling for protection, Silvia meets F.B.I. Agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn), who initially sees Silvia as a threat, but quickly comprehends that there is more to this story than she’s letting on. Fearful for her own life, yet reluctant to give Keller all the facts, Silvia finds herself in a hurricane of intrigue as the days count down to the dignitary’s volatile appearance.

There’s reason to believe that her motives aren’t as benign as she claims. But Keller faces a deadline for determining the truth: Zuwanie is scheduled to speak at the U.N. General Assembly.

The screenplay credited to Charles Randolph, Scott Frank and Steven Zaillian, Pollack brings a certain style to the proceedings. “The Interpreter” moves with confidence and efficiency through the streets of New York, exuding the city’s unique energy. Much has been made of the fact that Pollack was allowed to film at the United Nations - a privilege that was famously withheld from Alfred Hitchcock - but it’s the Big Apple atmosphere that grounds “The Interpreter” in reality.

It’s Kidman and Penn who do the heavy lifting when it comes to putting a human face on the script’s global politics. Theirs is an almost love story between opposites. She’s tall, he isn’t. She’s sneaky, he’s blunt. She’s lost a family and a country; he’s lost a wife and his faith. And yet, like two divided countries, they unite to form a bond. Romance! It’s not in the script. Kidman and Penn, both astonishing actors, put it in their eyes, their inflections, their silences between words. “We never had time for a lot of things,” Tobin tells Silvia.

All said and done Sydney Pollack’s complex but absorbing new drama, “The Interpreter,” is very much a ’70s-style paranoid thriller, with a mood, tone and cascade of plot twists that are highly reminiscent of his 1975 classic, “Three Days of the Condor.”