Hey folks, Harry here with a look and Sydney Pollack's latest film - One starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. Now the film isn't due out till April 22nd, so there's still plenty of time for a seasoned filmmaker like Sydney to fix this project and nail this into being a tautly paced suspense tale that has all the appropriate creeps and moments of halted breath. Having said that - the early word I'm hearing has been pretty damning thus far. That Sydney missed this - after all - this is the director of THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR - one of the greatest suspense films of all time. Not to mention his best film, JEREMIAH JOHNSON. Or the underrated classic THE YAKUZA. There are spoilers below - but remember this is one person's take... and this is a rough cut of that film.
Yo Harry, long time reader, first time reviewing-
Tonight, as the state of the union blares hot in my ears like so much "three minutes hate" I feel the need to write and give you a review of a new political thriller I've recently seen; THE INTERPRETER.
I saw this film at the Glendale Galleria (valley girl capital no more, I had sex in a parking lot there once). When I saw the film it wasn't under optimum movie going conditions. I was with a friends' P and M, but not my friend. Her 'rents decided she couldn't go because she's under 18 and the ticket said only over 18 - so it would be lying. They weren't however going to leave me (read: a boy) home alone with their daughter for a few hours and I couldn't catch a bus home, so they let me go even though I'm not quite 18 either. That isn't really important, but I feel that it's necessary to tell you that I was not at the top of my game when the movie started. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
The film, directed by Pollack starts out well with a very visceral scene that looks a lot like something Steven (endings are important?) Soderbergh might have shot. It's in Africa and I could almost taste the dust. The lighting was great, and it was even subtitled instead of dumbed - I mean dubbed. The movie was playing with my heart stings right away and pretty well I might add. Plus, it had a 12 year old blowing some guys' brains out in the opening 10 minutes which is always a plus. Even better, the machine gun blast was LOUD. It made my ears ring a bit, which I appreciate because if you've ever heard a gun fired at close range you know that it is loud and scary, I'm happy to announce that that was not under cut here.
Sadly, the above scene was the films highlight. Pollack blows his proverbial load in the first scene. Then we have to sit through 2 hours of racist and badly acted drivel. Occasionally scenes start out and almost make you believe that the movies going to take a turn for the better. But, it's to no avail.
I won't bother with a long summary. Suffice it to say that if you've seen the trailer you know most all of the "intricacies" (if you can call them that) of this film.
But, for the uninitiated here goes - Kidman stars as a white African who comes to the UN to be an interpreter after her family dies in a make believe African country based largely on Sudan. She over hears some people talking about assassinating the leader of the aforementioned make believe country. Soon people are trying to kill her so she tells and Penn shows up as the most generic cop EVER. The pair talk like rejected Tarantino characters for a few scenes then black people start dying and hilarity ensues - only, it's not a comedy.
So much of the move relies on "clever" dialogue. There is some, like a discussion of "gone" versus "Dead" when Penn and Kidman first meet. But so much of what comes out of people mouths sounds so insincere that the movie quickly becomes laughable.
Case and point, in a scene taken right out of SE7EN two cops enter a bedroom and one looks at the other and says, I'll look under the bed, you check the closet. Then they do so. Not only is this redundant, but if there were anyone alive in the room he or she would now know exactly what was going to happen and have the element of surprise. Keep in mind these are FBI special agents too! Now, I realize this doesn't sound terribly egregious, but the movie does this constantly, in every scene, all the time (yes, that was on purpose there).
There is probably 15-20 minutes of film taken up by characters saying what they are about to do, then doing it and then explaining what happened. Even with cuts made and there are plentiful easy cuts to make, (it's like john homes' circumcision) the film will still feel very dumbed down. In fact, the film feels like THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATES' semi-retarded little brother. If there weren't already a fairly good remake of that film fresh in the mass consciousness' collective mind this film might pass muster - as a mediocre in its best moment's thriller.
But, the remake was made, and even if it weren't this films pedigree is much too high for its schlockiness. The direction is at moments very nice like in some French new wave inspired moments that crop up at the start. The acting however is - well just bad. Kidman is bored and reads her lines like Tara Reid, a shame because I usually like her. And Penn, he should be ashamed of himself, not just for his "work" here, but even for taking this role. He has nothing to do except act out every single cop cliche except "we don't need no stinkin' badges!" and act glum and drunk. He is just sloppy in his screen time. He even literally gains a thick New Jersey accent in one scene near the middle of the feature - then looses it half way through the scene - in the middle of a sentence without a cut in shots. It was ridiculous and insulting.
And about Penn's character - I think I can say, with no hyperbole, this is the worst big screen character I've ever seen. I mean Uwe Boll could have written the character outline here. He plays a cop whose wife just left him - and then died. So he's burring himself in his work. He doesn't trust anyone, and plays by his own rules. He's an alcoholic whose seen one too many of his partners fall in the line of duty. Especially since he sees them all as a sort of extended family. (at one point he even exclaims "IVE ALREADY LOST ONE GUY, IM NOT GONNA LOSE ANOTHER GUY!") But, he might not be such a good a cop, because he gets involved personally with what should just be another case for him. Except - at the end of the movie, his wife's been dead for a whopping 23 days! We know, because he literally says so in the sappy wrap up closing frame. His wife is still warm in the ground and he's already trying to fuck another woman - but, then again, it is Kidman so can you blame him?
Many scenes start out well�but lead nowhere or just end up being dumb.
The moped chase scene for example. It starts out interestingly (even if I couldn't stop giggling from the thought of Eddie Izzard the item brings up) but quickly devolves into an action scene so slow paced I was almost expecting to see Ecks or Sever show up and start following Kidman.
Then there are some scenes towards the end with the leader which despite the fact that he acts his pants off (and does the best job in the whole damn movie) seem to go on forever.
When push comes to shove and the assassination scene takes place the reveal has long since been given to the audience and it all seems terribly anti-climactic. Especially considering that id already seen this scene in the Manchurian remake, and before that in Cronenbergs' DEAD ZONE so I sort of felt like Walken must have in the latter film. Also, the scene is even more anti-climactic because it was spelled out for us, then explained visually, then a "twist" (read: exactly what you thought would happen) then a character fills another in on what just happened - then the movie goes on for another 20-30 minutes!
Now, I might actually be to mean to the film. It does have its moments, the scene with the mask from the trailer for example. That scene works well for a quick jump - but it's totally out of character, and kills off the one good red herring the film had. The bus scene has some genuinely good dialogue, as well as some funny visuals and good tension build up. But, the film set its standard too high with the opening for either of these scenes to work.
And this isn't even getting into spoilers on the wretched ending, they can fix the rest, but unless they are testing 2 endings there is no way to salvage this picture without major reshoots. But, even then, it's still the most racist film I've seen since THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.
You see, we are supposed to buy that Kidman is an African, not a south African, but just a regular old African. If this were done to examine racial expectances then fine that might have been interesting, but it's obviously not. If Penn's character were instead given to a black actor to play off of racial tensions and give a reverse view of stereotypes that might be interesting too. In fact, there is a good movie idea in that.
But that's not this movie. In all the pictures of Africa we see, the white people are in charge, even in the opening scene, though there is an intelligent strong black man shown, it is implied that he is an underling to the 2 white men who ride with him in the car. And, though there are many African Americans in the film, and many black Americans too it seems ingenuous and placed. Cold and calculated the same as the crippled kids you see every now and again in advertising used to promote acceptance of difference, but really just put there to sell to a niche category.
Casting like this doesn't happen on accident. Every villain except 1 is black, everyone who dies is too except 2 characters, one of whom was French and seemingly plays into the French stereotype of cowardice as his character hid while his friends died then later commits suicide.
Now, I don't think Pollack is a racist, I don't think that was even the active intent, but the way the film is structured and the character react it is undeniably racist. All the black characters are subservient to the whites, or alternately are just evil. You even have a villain whose m.o. turns out to be that he's AN AFRICAN WITH AIDS! Yes, I kid you not, one of the main villains turns out to be on the edge because he's an AID's patient. I found that offensive and down right condescending.
The pair I attended with was were mixed about it too. We all agreed that it was by no means GOOD - but they seemed to like it more than I did. Especially my friends mother (a 40 something woman) "who said that it was fun and a good date movie". Her husband was less forgiving, quipping that "I wanted to get up and go get popcorn�in the middle of a thriller". And me, to summarize my thoughts,
BASICALLY THE MOVIE IS LIKE DIARRHEA, IT'S WATERED DOWN, BUT IT'S STILL JUST SHIT.
If you decide to post this call me sonic death monkey.
