Movies like “The Interpreter” are hard to come across these days. The majority of Hollywood’s current works are either good, bad, awful or great. This film does not fall into any of those categories.
“The Interpreter” is a rare mediocre Hollywood film. In fact, it is so average that the best way to describe one’s feelings after leaving the screening would be indifference.
The film’s characters are likable enough that the audience will remain attentive, but not interesting enough for them to care what happens to them. The plot is drawn out and suffers from a few holes, but is still tolerable enough to keep watching. The screenplay is sometimes corny and relies heavily on one-liners, but isn’t cheesy enough that it comes off as a joke. In short, this film is ordinary in every sense of the word; from the acting and directing to the special effects and lighting.
There was nothing original about this film, but nothing bad about it either. However, there were two aspects of the film that did become annoying; its soundtrack, and that’s only because some of the music didn’t fit some of the scenes, and the film’s blatant support for diplomacy over war, which only comes off as being pompous and holier-than-thou instead of an honest plea for nations to work things out.
“The Interpreter” is a run-of-the-mill international-assassination-conspiracy movie. It centers around Silvia Broome (Nicole Kidman), a United Nations interpreter who overhears the plans for an assassination attempt on an African dictator. Since she is one of the few people at the UN who knows the obscure African language used by the would-be assassins, Secret Service agents are called in to protect her.
Agents Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) and Dot Woods (Catherine Keener) are put in charge of both protecting Broome as well as stopping the assassination. Keller and Broome, who at first do not trust one another, grow to have a solid relationship when they realize that they have both suffered major loses in their lives. Penn and Kidman have decent chemistry together, but never reach their potential because of the lackluster screenplay that relies on Penn being a cynical smart-ass and Kidman being a strong independent free-thinker.
Penn’s cynicism would probably have been more interesting and funny if every other Secret Service agent, UN security official, FBI agent and badge wearing marshal wasn’t portrayed in the same way. There are several moments in this film where it seems like the only reason any of these security representatives are on screen is to try and one-up each other with zingers.
These moments mainly take place within the first hour and 15 minutes of the movie and only seem to be there to take up time. For reasons like these, the movie gets off to a slow start. The first one-third of the film plods along without any real purpose, other than introducing the characters, and that only takes 15 minutes.
The middle section of the film is where the story finally takes off and for about 30 minutes is extremely interesting and well done. This, unfortunately, is short lived and the film returns to its predictable ending. This is disappointing. It almost seems like the filmmakers had a great short film but decided to turn it into a feature length by slapping two pieces of white bread around a decent piece of meat.
“The Interpreter” won’t have audiences screaming its praises and it won’t have people booing its existence either. The majority of viewers will probably look at this film and just shrug their shoulders in neutrality. In the flavor of the week society of film making, “The Interpreter” is a bowl of vanilla with a couple of sprinkles tossed on top to make it look less ordinary.
