The Interpreter (2005, DVD)

It's hard to understand why people can call a movie a psychological thriller, yet deal nothing with the psychology of the mind, nor put any real thrills into the film. The Interpreter is a film which I had really high hopes for when I first saw the trailers for it. With the combination of Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman, there was no way that this film couldn't end up being a great one. Even if one of them didn't fit their roles, surely the other was talented enough to pick up the slack for the film. Well instead of picking up the slack, I fear that they actually made each other worse, and in turn, made the film worse. If I have already convinced you at this point, then you don't have to read any further, because this isn't going to be a movie that I recommend at the end of this review.

Nicole Kidman is Silvia Broome, who is an interpreter at the United Nations in New York City. She speaks some very rare languages, and is extremely qualified for the job that she has taken on. Hanging on every word, she prides herself in getting the translations between languages perfect, and works hard at it. After a session is evacuated, she returns later that night to the UN building, to retrieve some articles that she left behind in the translation booth. Upon entering the room, she hears a rare African dialect being spoken, and the men doing it are talking about assassinating a "teacher." Later in the movie you find out who that teacher is, but to avoid any plot spoilers I will leave that part out of my review. Needless to say, she takes the threat seriously and reports it a UN representative.

Sean Penn plays Tobin Keller, a secret service agent who has been off the job for two weeks after losing his wife. He is a very troubled man, but convinces his boss that he is better on the job, thus getting placed back into active duty. As luck would have it, he is placed in protection of the man that Kidman's character heard the threat was against. But, he doesn't believe her story, and makes her his prime suspect right off the bat. This was something an audience member could see coming from a mile away, but for some reason Silvia was surprised by it. From there until the end of the movie, it is a cat and mouse game of Keller and Sylvia going back and forth at each other, testing each other, and seeing just whether or not they can trust each other. All the while something appears to be going on in the city involving people coming to a speech to be held soon in the UN.

Now like I started getting to at the beginning of this review, I felt that Kidman and Penn were really bad in their roles for this film. The main reason for that may not have even been their fault, but a miscasting of the two main roles of the film. First of all, we are supposed to see a tough secret service agent, which ultimately has a soft side to him. With many of his recent movies, Penn has established himself as a pretty hard-nosed character, and the gruff persona that he has at the beginning of this film couldn't be glossed over well enough for you to end up liking him later on in the movie. We are supposed to feel bad for him, and at the same befriend him as the main character that is torn about what to believe. At the same time, we are shown two sides of Nicole Kidman's character, and either remain confused or decide for ourselves what she is all about.

Beneath the characters, and the lead actors of this film, there was a slow story that took far too long to develop. There was one sequence involving a set of secret service tails that was interesting, but with the rest of the film, I was checking my watch, looking at the clock, and just thinking how long that they dragged this film out to be. At a running time of 125 minutes, I think that there was room to cut a lot of the "back-story" (if you can call it that), out of the film. The development that was used for the characters was just as bad, because it distanced them even further from their audience. In the end, the film (if you even understood it) lacked anything worth talking about in the end. Penn and Kidman are normally really great actors, but in these roles, I think they really brought the film down, and caused The Interpreter to be a film not worth watching.