In a career spanning five decades, Sydney Pollack has helmed a few memorable dramas (“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” and “The Way We Were”) and one comedy classic (“Tootsie”), but it’s likely the films for which he will be most fondly remembered when he ultimately folds up his director’s chair are smart, white-knuckle thrillers such as “Three Days of the Condor,” “The Firm” and his latest stellar effort, “The Interpreter.”
Working from an elaborate story credited to several screenwriters, among them A-listers Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List,” “Gangs of New York”) and Scott Frank (“Out of Sight,” “Get Shorty”), Pollack has meticulously cut and polished a suspense-filled gem that shimmers like the best potboilers of the 60s and 70s, a period many believe represented the genre’s Golden Age. “The Interpreter” is an absorbing synthesis of hot-button themes ranging from terrorism to the changing face of international diplomacy to the U.S. intelligence community’s role in defusing explosive global situations. The movie is the first ever to be shot inside United Nations headquarters, and veteran cinematographer Darius Khondji (“Seven,” “Panic Room”) takes full advantage of the complex’s distinctive atmospherics. The score, by perennial award nominee James Newton Howard (“The Sixth Sense” “Glengarry Glen Ross”), is portentous — a rich, aural harbinger of peril waiting at every plot turn. Simply put, “The Interpreter” is viscerally and visually charged from beginning to end.
Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn act like the Academy Award winners they are, producing one of the more exciting onscreen couplings of this or any other year. They aren’t love interests in a conventional sense, but both stars do an excellent job selling the personal devastation, single-pointed focus and fear that form the foundation of their connection. Kidman’s Silvia Broome is an African-born U.N. translator who overhears a death threat against Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), tyrannical head of a fictional African state who is slated to speak to the U.N. General Assembly. Tobin Keller (Penn) is the federal agent assigned to investigate Silvia’s claim and keep her out of harms way while doing so. Both characters initially hide behind masks of secrecy, but as Zuwanie’s speech draws nearer and the specter of a full-blown conspiracy rears its head, they’ve got no choice but to trust one another. That’s when Pollack ratchets up the intensity with some surprising revelations about hidden pasts that keep his audience guessing ’til the closing credits start to roll. (Rated PG-13 for violence, some sexual content and brief strong language. Running time: 128 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 22, 2005. Read the original PDF.