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.
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.