My first question when seeing this movie (without getting all politically correct) is why they use a white woman (Nicole Kidman) to play the lead role of the Interpreter, from a factious African country? Never the less, Kidman has never been both more beautiful and vulnerable in a performance that rivals only that of her Oscar winning co-star Sean Penn. Penn is a Secret Service agent suddenly investigating her in an attempted assassination plot, on an African dictator named Zuwanie. Evidently, Kidman’s character Sylvia, has overheard (in her native tongue) a plot to kill the leader. We grow to learn that Sylvia was a supporter of Zuwanie but saw her parents killed, which explains why as a result, she became a rebel. Thrillers don’t get much smarter than “the Interpreter” and that is probably in part to the direction of Sydney Pollack who delivered a similar movie “The Firm” years back. Coupled with writing of Oscar winning Steve “Schindler’s List” Zallian and Scott “Minority Report” Frank, and you’ve got a strong commercial package. Despite some predictable moments, it’s the unexpected that keeps us intrigued when international politics, vengeance and security procedures all get in the way of human emotions and motives. The movies only downfall is its clichéd ending on a park bench. Couldn’t the brilliant writers come up with something more original?
