THE INTERPRETER

 

Three men pull up in a jeep within a stone’s throw of an abandoned sports arena in a desolate area of Matoba, a fictitious country that could stand in for any one of the troubled nations in Africa. One, a photographer, stays behind while the other two go inside for a previously arranged meeting. They find several boys playing ball looking suspiciously out of place. The men enter the bowels of the stadium to bear witness to the number of dead within - victims of tribal genocide - unaware that they will soon join them. The lone photographer hears gunfire.  Several important looking men arrive. The photographer crouches behind his jeep, shrinks behind the lens of his camera, and begins snapping their pictures. He slithers away with his pictures and a journal.  The beginning of “The Interpreter” is - to put it simply - incredibly suspenseful.

 

The action sets the tone for the rest of the movie by raising questions that need to be answered: Who were the men who set the photogrpaher’s colleagues up for the kill? - Why were they eliminated? - and - What is in the journal?

 

Director Sidney Pollack switches the action to the U.N., moving from one interpreter’s booth to the next.  One foreign language segues into another, establishing the delicate role that interpreters play in the world of international diplomacy. Their translation must be precise. One misquote could have dire repercussions.  So when interpreter Silvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) reports overhearing an assassination plot later in the evening from her darkened office, her words are not taken lightly. She is put into the protective custody of Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) and his team of federal agents. A background check reveals a woman without a country cast adrift by revolution and world events. An attempt on her life makes her story credible, but her suspicious behavior casts her in a different light, especially when the photographer from Matoba arranges a clandestine meeting with her in New York.

 

Nicole Kidman is outstanding as the title character who walks a fine line between her role as impartial observer and her politics when she is thrust into the murky world of  international intrigue.  

 

One exiled leader from Matoba lives in Brooklyn, revered by his community while the ruling president is readying to make his plea for acceptance into the U.N.  Telling the good guys from the bad guys is not easy, except for the assassins loose on both sides of the globe. Who do they work for?  What does Silvia have to do with them? And what does the photographer from Matoba have to do with all of them? All the answers to the important questions will be answered in due time, but not before people die.

 

Sean Penn, once again, demonstrates why he is one of America’s finest actors.  He is thoroughly convincing as the seasoned Federal agent Tobin Keller who eats and sleeps his job. The boredom of the stakeout and the dangers that result are as much a part him as the air that he breathes. But the recent loss of his wife weighs heavy on his mind. Watching Silvia and following her every move is a constant reminder of his loss. But Silvia is something of an enigma. Her every word and gesture is guarded. She could have  something to hide, or, like Tobin, have a psyche too wounded to speak of.  That each finds some solace on some emotional plane that neither understands comes as quite a surprise to each of them. But Tobin, ever the pro, is wary of letting personal feelings get in the way of the job. While the loss that seems to draw them closer together, seems at times, forced, the filmmakers never make the mistake of carrying the love angle to the n-th degree, cutting back to the real story that threw them together at just the right time.

 

There are some exciting set pieces in “The Interpreter” that should rank with the best that Sidney Pollack has ever put on screen like the assassin’s infiltration of a top secret spy lab in the middle of Manhattan in “Three Days of the Condor” and the pursuit of lawyer  Tom Cruise by assassins in “The Firm.” Besides the opening in “The Interpreter” there are the surveillance scenes through the streets of Brooklyn: a throwback to the spy thrillers of the late forties; and two nail biters reminiscent of two Alfred Hitchcock films: “Sabotage” where a boy unknowingly carries a bomb on a London bus in the middle of the day; and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” with its climactic assassination scene at the Royal Albert Hall. I won’t bother referencing these to the particular scenes in “The Interpreter” because they are the kinds of moments that are best experienced rather than talked about. They are just part of what makes “The Interpreter” a first class thriller.

 

                                                                                                                      Copyright 2005

 

Two classic thrillers from director Sidney Pollack

 

“Three Days of the Condor” (1975) - Robert Redford is a data analyst who goes out for lunch and comes back to an office full of dead people. The assassin missed him and pursues him for the rest of the movie in this first class thriller.

 

“The Firm” (1993) - Tom Cruise joins a law firm unaware of their ties to the mob. His strait laced morality pits him against his bosses and the mob, but his law smarts saves his life in a  most surprising ending. Adapted from a John Grisham novel with Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, and David Straithairn among others.

 

Two Hitchcock movies that came immediately to mind in two key scenes in “The Interpreter”

 

“Sabotage” (1936) - Oscar Homolka is a the mild mannered manager of a movie theater who makes bombs in his basement. The classic scene has a boy unknowingly carrying an armed bomb through the streets of London and onto a bus. With Sylvia Sidney and John Loder.

 

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956) - The end of “The Interpreter” really gave me a feeling of deja vu for the climactic assassination scene in the Royal Albert Hall (London’s Carnegie Hall) from this movie. The scene may not be exactly the same but a few key shots (not dissimilar from both versions of “The Manchurian Candidate”) are. James Stewart and Doris Day play tourists who learn about the assassination plot. Made before in 1934 by Hitchcock but without the Royal Albert Hall.

 

Two more great assassination films from director Alfred Hitchcock

 

“Foreign Correspondent” (1940) - Joel McCrae is a reporter who gets caught up in an international conspiracy and spies in Europe. The assassination scene happens early on. The killer escapes unseen under a sea of umbrellas bobbing up and down in the pouring rain in a set piece that only the Master of Suspense could have dreamed of.

 

“North by Northwest” (1959) - The legendary film with Cary Grant being chased by a crop duster has him blamed for an assassination at the U.N. A one of a kind film with a grand finale on the face - or should I say faces - of Mt. Rushmore.

 

Other assassination films

 

“The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) - Forget the remake (good on its own terms), this is the original from director John Frankenheimer about brainwashing, the Korean War and the sleeper assassin whose mind is tapped into with the flip of a card. With Frank Sinatra at his best, Laurence Harvey,  and Angela Landbury as the mother from hell.

 

“Nine Hours to Rama” (1963) - Horst Bucholz, best known from “The Magnificent Seven” is the troubled assassin planning to kill Mahatma Ghandi.

 

One great movies with some classic surveillance scenes

 

“The House on 92nd Street” (1945) - Director Henry Hathaway went to the streets of New York to film this thriller about an FBI probe of a Nazi Spy Ring. Character actor Lloyd Nolan has never been better as the top FBI guy.