Review of The Interpreter on Filmviews.net
Year2005 ReviewerChris Docker
The Interpreter
The United Nations is very much at the forefront as this movie is released, with a potential major overhaul on the agenda, so what could be a standard (if very well made) thriller has an extra edge, due in no small part to the excellent acting talents of the wonderful Nicole Kidman and (to an only slightly lesser extent) Sean Penn.
The film opens in a fictitious African country - one of those with an African-sounding name where the ruler is enlisting the help of children to tote weapons and massacre people while covering up the ethnic cleansing by calling it a response to terrorists.
Back in the United Nations, the once-beneficent, now-murderous leader and his forsaken country are being hotly debated, but the news comes that he plans to come to the UN and exercise a right to address them. Nicole Kidman is a UN interpreter who overhears what she says is a plot to assassinate him when he does - she's also spotted when she overhears and so becomes a target.
The following action keeps the suspense going for well over two hours, with Kidman in a love-hate relationship with Secret Service agent Sean Penn. Penn manages to not overact (most of the time), turning in what is overall a sterling performance. I much preferred him in this to his (also showing just now) Assassination of Richard Nixon. His standard "I am very upset now and almost gonna cry" face is getting a bit too common in his movies - but he comes across well as the calm, experienced secret services agent trying to stay one step ahead and also coping with heavy loss in his personal life. Kidman has some great lines about the value of diplomacy but the great stance for the value of the United Nations as an institution gets a bit lost in the all-out blockbuster action.
Whether we follow simply the characters on screen or look at the actors behind them, cinema can sometimes offer a role model or idea to be developed. The portrayal of the United Nations as an ethical force for good is only put forward in a kind of simplistic way, but Kidman manages something more enduring. A democrat supporter, she has wisely aligned herself with a non-partisan issue in this film (even though the character is maybe inconsistent in moral integrity). As an actress, she has chosen films wisely, including serious art projects (that don;t make her much money) such as Dogville, intellectually stimulating or works of a valuable literary quality such as The Hours and the Human Stain, and well-timed forays into political correctness such as The Stepford Wives and the Interpreter. He acting range is stupendous. As a woman, she retains a electric appeal to set any red-blooded man's heart racing as well as, it would seem, a strong intellect and sense of professionalism that should make her a role model for women or aspiring actresses.
It is hard to say if the UN, at least in its present form, would do as well as in the movie version of The Interpreter, but even with the movie's Hollywood-style onslaught of box-office top ingredients, we are perhaps still left with the feeling that, even if the UN isn't perfect, it's all we have. There is less blame in not reaching a noble dream that never having a sense of nobility to strive towards.
Rating: 7/10;