The Interpreter movie review & film summary (2005)

"Vengeance is a lazy form of grief," she tells the agent, who has some grief and vengeance issues of his own. She also tells him of a custom from Matobo: When a man kills a member of your family and is captured, he is tied up and thrown into the river, and it is up to your family to save him, or let him drown. If he drowns, you will have vengeance, but you will grieve all of your days. If you save him, you will be released from your lament. This is not a practice I was familiar with, and seems even to have escaped the attention of the Discovery Channel; I'd like to see a family debating whether to save the killer or drown him. Maybe a family like the Sopranos.

What I admire most about the film is the way it enters the terms of this world -- of international politics, security procedures, shifting motives -- and observes the details of all-night stakeouts, shop talk, and interlocking motives and strategies. More than one person wants Zuwanie dead, and more than one person wants an assassination attempt, which is not precisely the same thing.

Nicole Kidman is a star who consistently finds dramatic challenges and takes chances. Consider her in "Birth," "The Human Stain," "Dogville," "The Hours," "The Others" and "Moulin Rouge." Here, with a vaguely South African accent and a little-girl fear peering out from behind her big-girl occupation, she sidesteps her glamour and is convincing as a person of strong convictions. Sean Penn matches her with a weary professionalism, a way of sitting there and just looking at her, as if she will finally break down and tell him what he thinks she knows. It's intriguing the way his character keeps several possibilities in his mind at once, instead of just signing on with the theory that has the most sympathy from the audience.

The final scene is perhaps not necessary; it has "obligatory closure" written all over it. But at least we are spared romantic cliches, and I was reminded of Robert Forster and Pam Grier in Tarantino's "Jackie Brown," playing two adults with so much emotional baggage that for them romance is like a custom in another country.

Note: I don't want to get Politically Correct, I know there are many white Africans, and I admire Kidman's performance. But I couldn't help wondering why her character had to be white. I imagined someone like Angela Bassett in the role, and wondered how that would have played. If you see the movie, run that through your mind.