The Interpreter (2005) And here's why we miss director Sydney Pollack, making this thriller his last full length feature film before passing away from cancer three years later in 2008......
An actor turned TV director, turned top of the 'A' list filmmaker, Pollack swung for the fences every time up at bat. Big stars, big subject matter.......he could wrangle the most tempestuous of actors and guide them into multiple Academy Award nominations and wins.....
No matter what genre he attempted - action-adventure, western, romantic drama, suspense, he worked (and sometimes struggled mightily) to make each film in its own way thoughtful, thought-provoking and above all, intelligently crafted for adults.
Let's put it bluntly..... he never made stupid movies......the kind of mind-numbing, dumbed down films that now constitute more than 80 per cent of TV shows and movies made today........
No matter what genre he worked in, Pollack and his actors always searched for subtext in the scripts.....and unafraid to take the risk of overthinking the material.....(which at times, did happen in some of this films.....)
That's why we think so many of his films still hold up today ("Absence Of Malice", "Three Days Of The Condor", "Jeremiah Johnson", "They Shoot Horses, Don't They").....maybe because the pursuit and achievement of excellence in all aspects those films never ages.
"The Interpreter", his final ambitious project, doesn't quite attain the 'classic thriller' status of "Three Days Of The Condor". Its final screenplay, going through multiple writers and revisions, renders the film too overly busy, over plotted and complicated, trying to touch too many bases at once.
But Pollack brings to it his usual professional sheen and craft and above all, his superb skill at exacting the best work out of his major stars (In this case, Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn)
And whenever it comes time to amp up the suspense and action in the story, Pollack's talent here far exceeds the paltry chaotic efforts of today's batch of so called 'action' specialists who grind out the current imbecilic multiplex fodder that appear edited with meat grinders.
No wonder we miss him so much.
You've noticed by now we've hardly devoted any time at all to re-hashing a scene-by-scene synopsis of the movie. Ah, the hell with that. We will say it involves an emotionally wrung out Secret Service agent (Penn), still grieving over the sudden accidental death of his estranged wife. His new assignment finds him protecting a U. N. interpreter (Kidman), who's overheard a death threat to the visiting leader of the African nation of her birth......and the man's already a pariah in the international community for his genocidal slaughters of his own people.
(As a bonus, you can spot director Pollack himself in the movie, in a few scenes playing Penn's worried boss.....)
If you haven't seen the film yet, then that's all you need to know to dive into it and thrill to the twists and turns and the slow burn romance developing between the two very damaged main characters.
As with many Sydney Pollack films, "The Interpreter" remains a film we always love to re-visit, like stopping in to enjoy an old friend's company. And when we lost Pollack, we mourned the loss of one of our favorite creators of major motion pictures.....4 stars (****)
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