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Director Sydney Pollack and his crew had unprecedented access to the UN building

The problem with all this sneaking around is that it is rarely ever all that suspenseful. After all the twists and turns we have come to expect from thrillers these days, The Interpreter is almost too linear, too straightforward. The film introduces new mysteries here and there, only to resolve them pretty much immediately. (Who was that guy wearing the mask in Silvia's fire escape? Oh, never mind, he's dead now.) The one genuinely interesting sequence—a nervously amusing bit where three agents tracking three different people all coincidentally end up on a bus together—will be diminished considerably for anyone who has already seen the film's trailer, which gives away the climax to this part of the story.

It didn't have to be this way. Pollack's last bona fide hit was the tense nail-biter The Firm, starring Kidman's then-husband Tom Cruise. But that was 12 years ago. Since then, the only other films he has directed are Random Hearts and Sabrina, both of which played no small part in turning Harrison Ford from a dramatic action hero into a numbing bore. In addition, The Interpreter is conflicted by its need to promote a message of international cooperation even as it delivers the blockbuster goods, whereby we in the audience get our emotional satisfaction from watching one person act outside the law. If we were charitable, we might say that the film's climax captures the tension between justice and forgiveness; but given that the film is credited to no less than five writers, it's more probable that the cooks behind this particular broth just couldn't agree on what the point of it all is.

Talk About It

1. Silvia says "vengeance is a lazy form of grief," and she describes a Matoban ritual in which someone who commits a murder is almost drowned, and the family of the victim has the option of rescuing him and bringing resolution to their grief or letting him drown and mourning forever. What do you think of this ritual? Is it justifiable to risk even a murderer's life like that? What would you do, rescue the person or let him drown? Discuss these things in the context of typical western views of the death penalty—and whether or not that punishment brings "closure" to victims' families.
   
   
2. Does grief drive people apart or bring them together in this film? Is there any other way they could have come together, apart from sharing their grief?
   
   
3. Do you believe it is healthier to mention the names of the dead or to avoid saying their names? Do we find healing from the past by ignoring it or acknowledging it? How important should it be to have other people acknowledge the past wrongs done to us?
   
   

The Family Corner

The Interpreter is rated PG-13 for violence, some sexual content and brief strong language. The sexual content is limited to a scene in a strip club, which underscores how bored the Secret Service agents are to be guarding a foreign dignitary who wanted to go there. Adults are shot by children packing machine guns, a few other people are shot, civilians are killed in a terrorist attack, and a man is found dead after bleeding to death in a bathtub.

Photos © Copyright Universal Pictures

Sydney Pollack has directed some memorable and impressive films (Tootsie, The Firm, Absence of Malice). And yet, moviegoers are still recovering from the disastrous Harrison Ford romance called Random Hearts. Pollack's new film The Interpreter falls somewhere in between, but it's closer to a "hit" than a "miss" amongst critics.

At the box office, it's a bona fide smash, topping the charts last week, largely due to the drawing power of its stars, Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. Moreover, the thriller has built some significant buzz due to its unusual backdrop—the U.N.

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