| Product: |
Interpreter (DVD) |
| Date: |
15.10.07 (129 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good casting choice, fantastic storyline,
Disadvantages: Somewhat predictable in places.
The story starts in South Africa, to the sounds of tribal singing, with three men in a car, driving up to an old derelict football stadium…the Black African driver and the white Afrikaans passenger get out but ask the photographer to stay in the car.
The two men go into the stadium and are met by 3 young black children – one of whom take them to a dark room which is filled with the stench of the dead bodies lying there. Suddenly there is a shout and the men rush out only to be shot dead by the children. The photographer witnesses this but manages to hide.
Now you may be thinking I have given away a lot but this all happens within the first 5 minutes of the film starting and really sets the story of the film.
After this scene we are taken to the United Nations where Silvia Broome is working as an interpreter, she overhears a plot to kill the African head of state and when she reports it, soon becomes investigated herself by the secret service, as they don’t quite believe her story. To give any more away would be a sin in itself as you really have to see this film for yourself as you will want to discover all about Silvia, her past, and her present life. Why is she in America? What is she doing here?
Part of you wonders if Silvia is telling the truth throughout or is the secret service agent Tobin Keller not up to the job anymore? Only watching this will tell you all you want to know.
It really is a brilliant action thriller, it keeps you guessing for quite a way into the film, I wouldn’t go as far as to say there are great twists but there is definitely some suspense there to keep you 100% focussed all the way to the end. The opening scenes of the movie will have you thinking that they are significant to the story but you won’t know why until much later.
This is a film about terrorists and without a doubt it really makes you think. This is not what I would call an overly violent film, it does have a few scenes of violence, namely the opening scene and one or two others…but not that bad really as the film does have a 12 rating.
Sydney Pollack has really done amazingly well with his choice of casting in this film. He actually chose them before he had a script written – he had the film in his head. Nicole Kidman was perfectly cast as Silvia, she was totally believable as being Afrikaans, her accent was very accurate (I worked for a firm a few years ago which was owned by Afrikaans’s and spoke to them on numerous occasions) Sean Penn cast in the role of Keller, surprised me. I hadn’t seen him in anything since he was in Friend’s back in 2001 and was astonished at how mature he seemed in the film. He really played the secret agent role well…from start to finish. Keller’s partner – Dot Woods played by Catherine Keener also played her part well, although it wasn’t exactly a main part she still shone for me…throughout the film I kept thinking I’ve definitely seen her before but couldn’t for the life remember where or when. On checking IMDB I realised immediately she played Trish in the 40 Year Old Virgin! Which I had watched when it just came out.
Sydney Pollack himself has a role in this film as Keller’s boss, which I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out in the bonus features section of the DVD. (more on this later)
The film doesn’t really have that memorable a soundtrack apart from the African tribal singing at the beginning and then again at the end, which was lovely. I can’t really recall anything else jumping out at me, but then again I was way too involved in the storyline to listen to music. I believe the soundtrack has been released though so would be interesting to see what it’s like.
The film is shot in widescreen which means you get to see a lot going on at any one time, this is mentioned in the bonus features too, as Pollack gets very annoyed when he shoots a film in widescreen and it gets changed to Pan & Scan format.
The film runs for an astonishing 124 minutes, I say astonishing because I hadn’t realised I had been sitting watching it for so long…the time just flew by without me realising. The story flows easily and at no time are you wondering how long is left to run.
The bonus features were actually quite interesting too. I am not usually a fan of watching these as they can sometimes be a bit boring. But this was different.
First of all there is the option to have subtitles in 12 different languages…great if you fancy doing a bit of interpreting yourself…
There is an alternative ending to the film which I won’t go into as it would spoil the real ending…suffice to say it is an interesting ending but the real one was still the better, if not a bit abrupt.
The deleted scenes part was pretty easy to see why they were deleted….they wouldn’t have left much room for guesswork or suspense in the film.
The part I found interesting was the “Sydney Pollack at work – From Concept to Cutting Room” It gave me a small insight into the director and what makes him tick.
The next part was when Pollack talks about Pan & Scan vs. Widescreen, you can see he is really passionate about not having the format of his film messed around with….he says “ If I wanted you to see this (shows a normal 4 x 3 shot) I would have shot it in that format…but I wanted to show you this (widescreen)”
There are two trailers included, Pride & Prejudice and The Bourne Identity.
You can also choose to have the audio commentary with Pollack turned on or off. I chose off so can’t comment on this.
You then have “The Ultimate Movie Set – The United Nations” In the beginning Pollack was promised that he could film in the actual UN buildings, but then 8 weeks before the shooting of the film they changed their minds. But after an appeal to Kofi Annan they were permitted to use the UN for filming, and quite a few scenes are shot in the general assembly room.
Finally there is an excerpt from “A day in the life of Real Interpreters” This takes a look at the interpreters from the actual UN and a snapshot of their daily work life.
The extras run for about a further 36minutes and were all pretty interesting.
The film as a whole was probably one of the best I’ve seen in a while, in that it had me gripped from the beginning, it kept me wondering, but also guessing what might happen in some scenes and then being proved wrong…this, in my opinion is the sign of a great movie. There are some scenes which of course are predictable, but then they are meant to be anyway as you are shown the prelude to it….(got you wondering now haha)
So to sum up this film I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good suspense action movie. Even though it has a 12 rating I wouldn’t think many 12 year olds would really understand all of this film, and it really needs to be concentrated on to understand what is happening all the time. Even though I say there is a lot of suspense in the film, some of it was a bit predictable too…but this didn’t deter my enjoyment of the film at all.
Go on give it a go, you may be pleasantly surprised!
The film is available from Amazon for under a fiver at the moment so go grab a copy.
Thanks for reading
Michelle (Oct07)
Summary: A great film which had me hooked from start to finish.
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