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92 out of 127 people found the following comment useful :- A Very Safe Movie, 2 May 2005 Author: daveisit from Melbourne, Australia
The Interpreter is an extremely packaged political thriller that contains only a little punch. The main reason I gave it a go was Sean Penn who seems to rarely make mistakes selecting his work. Nicole Kidman can be a mixed bag, and Sydney Pollack a competent seasoned veteran director. All three performed well without setting the screen alight.The use of the United Nations building was a big plus and definitely gave the movie more realism. It also gave the viewer more of an idea on what a massive organisation the UN is.Even though "The Interpreter" was enjoyable the ending was definitely a disappointment. It wasn't that it was necessarily wrong, just that you knew what was coming. This was the "Hollywood Factor" showing through. Perhaps the reason it didn't turn into real Hollywood trash was the fact it was filmed and produced in New York.
128 out of 203 people found the following comment useful :- What a disappointment!, 24 April 2005 Author: zhenca from Poland
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
With all my respect and admiration for the creators of the movie as well as my concern for the topics of political corruption and ethnic conflicts it raises, I must admit ruefully that even the brilliance of Sean Penn's acting (perfect as he always is) couldn't save "The Interpreter" from going flop in every respect. First comes the poorly written script with artificially forced scenes that totally undermine the credibility of whatever's happening on screen. How on earth could you imagine an opposition leader of an African country, no matter how small, taking a ride on a street-bus and, what is even more bewildering, discussing political dealings and murders in a pure English with his accuser Nicole Kidman, all this with plenty of, one can assume, English-speaking people around them. Another gem of incongruity in the film is leaving the president of a country all by himself right after an assassination attempt and despite all the efforts to protect him from being killed. These are just a few among the abundance of inconsistencies and strained situations in the script. The directing adds neither credibility nor suspense at all. It is pretty easy to guess the intentions and further actions of the characters because you have seen all these hackneyed plot twists so many times before. No originality, ingenuity, or finesse one would expect from the creator of "Three days of the Condor" comes out in a below the average handling of the plot development. This all leaves Kidman's attempts at being believable all but successful and, especially so, in the culminating scene. Where it is supposed to be great emotional acme nothing is felt but an insipid taste of "you've guessed it all" disillusion. What could have become a clever, topical political thriller turned out to be an average Hollywood flick with no power to awake people's hearts and minds or change attitudes to ethnic cleansing and wars in the real world.
131 out of 217 people found the following comment useful :- Script Needs Work, 24 April 2005 Author: director_mitch from United States
I was interested in seeing The Interpreter since it looked like a good adult drama. Unfortunately, the movie has some problems.The big plus of the movie is Kidman. She is one of those women who actually looks better as she ages, and she is a talented actress. Sean Penn is also a good actor, and both do a great job in the movie.Unfortunately the good acting can't overcome the weak script. I felt like the story was still a 2-3 drafts short of being ready for the screen. The biggest problem was that there are plot holes you could drive a truck through. I also felt the movie dragged through most of the middle as they tried to develop the strained relationship between the principle characters.If you are a plot-driven movie fan, as I am, the movie is likely to be a disappointment. If you are a acting-driven movie fan, you will probably like the movie more.
135 out of 228 people found the following comment useful :- Recommended!, 9 April 2005 Author: blackfeather_gr from Greece
I had the chance to see this film yesterday at its world opening in Athens,Greece."The interpreter" is a political thriller directed by one of the most suitable filmmakers for this,Sydney Pollack. Nicole Kidman plays the role of a South African-born UN translator who overhears an assassination threat against the dictator of an African country.Sean Penn plays the role of a Secret Service agent,assigned to investigate the case.Soon we find out that the interpreter's past could explain her possible involvement in the conspiracy.So-maybe-not everything is exactly as it seems to be. Both Kidman and Penn give controlled and emotional performances,although intense and powerful on the inside.It's nice to see 2 stars of the value of Kidman and Penn to make these choices in their career and not waste their talent in indifferent projects. In the end the film is not only a political thriller.It is also a story on overcoming personal losses,dealing with the past in a clever,effective way and moving on...
81 out of 136 people found the following comment useful :- Kidman & Penn are superb in thriller, 13 April 2005 Author: dougandwin from Adelaide Australia
Having seen "Mystic River" recently, I was awaiting Sean Penn's next movie with great anticipation as he is one brilliant actor, and when I heard Nicole Kidman was to be his co-star, this was well worth waiting for, and both of them are superb in a very well-constructed movie, with great location shooting in New York. and in particular the United Nations building. Sydney Pollack has produced (and played a small part in it!) an excellent movie, full of intrigue with exciting music and great photography. "The Interpreter" has, by its very nature, been forced to create a new African Nation , rather than single out Zimbabwe for example, and the opening sequences set the mood for a very enthralling 2 1/4 hours. The whole cast is excellent, though made up of relative unknowns other that the two stars. I can recommend this film very highly.
91 out of 165 people found the following comment useful :- It lived up to my expectations, 11 April 2005 Author: Renaldo Matlin from Oslo, Norway
First of all, it would seem impossible to go wrong with this: you have Sydney Pollack at the helm, the blessings from the United Nations to actually shoot INSIDE the UN building itself (with several key scenes taking place in the general assembly room), all shot on location in the Big Apple, and to top it all off you have the best actress and actor of their generation in the lead! The result is a solid thriller, well sewn together, and veteran director Pollack wraps it all up weary neatly, with no loose ends. Just like he did with other thrillers like the masterful "Three Days of the Condor" and the entertaining "The Firm." I'm not saying "The Interpreter" is on level with those two, but it *is* an entertaining and thrilling two hours (especially a scene involving a bus is quite tense).In the end I was really left with just one quibble: as things developed the ending really came as no big surprise. Still, that said: it's a political thriller directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. What more could one really wish for?
26 out of 37 people found the following comment useful :- Ridiculous Ending Spoils Good Movie, 22 January 2006 Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States
Seldom has an ending been so disappointing and ruined a good film as this one.For most of the way, this was a slick thriller, nicely photographed and nicely acted. Sean Penn is outstanding in here. I like to see him play low-key characters instead of hot-headed sleazeballs. Nicole Kidman also gives a good performance. Sometimes her classic beauty hides the fact she can act. The story was pretty involving, hard to put down once you've started. My only complaint up to the ending was the obvious plug for the United Nations. This looked a public relations piece for that organization.However, then came that ending - a real insult to anyone's intelligence. In a nutshell, nobody would go the extremes they went to here to protect a visiting dignitary, using all that manpower and machinery....and then leave him all alone in a room at the end! Are you serious??? It was unbelievably stupid and ruined what had been an entertaining and somewhat- smart film.
22 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :- Don't bother unless....., 11 November 2005 Author: jax713 from Chicago
I love thrillers. I love suspense. I very much like Kidman and Penn. And I like Sidney Pollack's work. But this movie has one of the most undeveloped scripts I've ever seen. I agree wholeheartedly with the reviewer who wrote this script was 2 or 3 drafts away from being ready to film. The trailers lead you to believe Kidman is in danger, is running for her life, but the movie never really comes to this. We never see the secret service, the FBI, the CIA, or the local police go through the investigative process that leads to the revelation at the end of the story. In fact, most of the law enforcement personnel is shown as inept or inadequate, except, of course, for Penn. People get shot but you don't know why, I mean really know. Penn tries to do something with his character, but the script doesn't bring him into focus. At times, he has to look at Kidman dreamily only weeks after his wife's death??? How Kidman got into a room alone with the intended target was preposterous. This movie is Not A Thriller, Not Suspenseful. And the ending is a deflated, run-out-of-gas, illogical, incomplete exercise in nothingness. Again, it annoys me to know that people get paid big money to turn out this kind of un-movie, basically a string of scenes revolving around a conspiracy that lacks intelligence and complexity. Don't bother unless you're a big fan of the stars who do what they can with a Mc-script. My two stars are one for each of them for their effort.
57 out of 100 people found the following comment useful :- Another lame, wannabe thriller that had a lot of promise…....., 23 April 2005 Author: lotus_chief from Brooklyn, NY
***SPOILERS BELOW***Watching the trailer for 'The Interpreter', I was initially intrigued. I love a good political thriller, and I see Sean Penn and Sydney Pollack involved….I'm game. Never mind Nicole Kidman, I'm not a fan and probably never will be; she just irks me. Anyhow, as much as I liked the trailer, it's VERY flawed in that I basically knew what was going to happen in the film…..namely who the 'bad guy' is. It really spoiled the movie for me. I'm smarter than the average Joe; I can't believe people still fall for the 'oh my goodness, the bad guy is actually the person who appears to be the victim, the good guy!!' twist. It's very lame and overdone. Try something new people! Even so I had to depend on the execution of this to come away satisfied overall. That does NOT happen here….at ALL.The acting here is good overall, nice cinematography all around, but what absolutely kills 'The Interpreter' is the script. My GOD the script is horrible! My friend sitting next to me asked me if it was written in crayon. It minus well had been written in crayon, because it doesn't get more childish than this. Kidman's character now ranks up there with Monica Bellucci's horrid 'performance' in Tears of the Sun as one of the most annoying characters ever in film; and what pisses me off is that this type of character is getting more and more prevalent in movies like this. From the beginning Kidman's character walks around completely clueless, lying every chance she gets holding information from anyone/everyone who's trying to help her. What killed me was when Penn asked her who she met with in the park and she simply answers, 'it's personal'. I was about to walk out the theater after hearing that. You'd think that in a pressure situation where you had bitched and moaned earlier about possibly not getting any protection, you'd be a LITTLE more cooperative with the people who are now PROTECTING YOU! Who writes this crap? 'It's personal'??? The writers couldn't come up with a better answer than that??? All throughout the movie we gotta sit through the torture of seeing Kidman lie and hide things from the very people she's depending on, like it's a game or something. At one point Penn shows her a picture he found of her and her brother, holding machine guns walking down a street in Africa some time ago. Penn, now expecting her to finally come clean after about 2-3 previous meetings like these (where he uncovers another one of her lies), and the best thing that Kidman could say is…..get this……'that's not me'. WHAT??? What do you mean 'that's not me?' Only after more pressing from Penn does she admit that the woman in the picture (her) isn't the type of person she is now. Penn isn't innocent of corny/lame/pointless dialogue either….as we get the pleasure of going through more of his emotional, 'oh woe is me' soliloquies throughout the film, at times without ANY provocation. I swear in a scene or two they'd be talking about something political or a conspiracy and Penn just bust out talking about his dead wife. Where the hell did THAT come from? And how many more times does the hero/good guy of the film have to be a drunk, never mind the reason?This movie, running at 2 hrs and 8 mins, could've been cut down by at least 40 minutes easily. By simply doing away with the run-around supplied by Kidman, and lame subtle attempts at a romantic angle….scenes that seem like Pollack was all too happy to film and make the movie drag even more, would have STARTED to make the movie's execution a little better. I say 'started' because the script on a whole is just a total mess. After a while there's just blabbering going on and you don't even care who's who and who's working for this one or that one and he has conflict with him because of someone else's agenda blah blah blah. Other things I didn't like:- the bus scene was filmed nicely, but what was REALLY her point of getting on the bus? - Who was the assassin who was after Kidman working for? - Just why in the hell did she turn on the light in the interpreter's room anyway?? - You mean to tell me that the whole thing was just faking an assassination attempt in order to get more 'credibility'?? - Kidman goes through all of this lying and hiding to get to the President, just for him to read a few passages in a book he wrote and that she knows by heart??? - She attempts to murder an international government figure, and all they do to her is 'send her home'?? Isn't she a citizen of her home country (where she really will be just 'going home'), but also a citizen of the US…where she can be tried and sentenced like any one of us? I refuse to waste anymore time on this joke of a political thriller…I've wasted enough. I only went to see this because I was taking a friend of mine out for her birthday and this is what she wanted to see. Now I remember why I said I would not be going to the movies for a long while. Total waste of time and money.* out of **** stars.
54 out of 96 people found the following comment useful :- Exciting, 9 April 2005 Author: menkarp from Athens
Sidney Pollack has done it again! Movie premiered yesterday in Athens, was among the first to catch it. Nicole Kidman stars as Silvia Broom, a UN interpreter with a dark history behind her. Sean Penn stars as Tobin Keller, government agent in charge of protection of foreign diplomatic missions. The movie is breathtaking, after the third sequence I just sat back and let it carry me away. If you are a fan of good-old 70s spy films, you cannot miss this one. Needless to point out the breathtaking performances of Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. The last sequence in the UN is one of the best I have ever seen. Congs to everybody involved (maybe now is the right momentum for a sequel of 3 days of the Condor!).
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