THE INTERPRETER

Sydney Pollack returns to the land of thrillers with "The Interpreter" a timely, thought-provoking drama with a superb cast and an interesting premise. A little long-winded and sometimes confusing, “The Interpreter” benefits from solid performances by Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn & Catherine Keener. Thirty years after Sydney Pollack made the taut political thriller Three Days Of The Condor, the Oscar winning director returns to the same arena and repeats his success. "The Interpreter" has the distinction of being the first commercial movie to be filmed inside the United Nations building in New York City. The UN Charter prohibits commercial use of the building, but director Sydney Pollack was able to get permission to film from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on the grounds that the film's themes support the UN mission. It helps that "The Interpreter" was able to film on location inside the UN, as that building's huge open spaces and natural light improve the film's aesthetics considerably and would have been impossible to recreate.

Stars Nicole Kidman as a United Nations interpreter named Silvia Broome, who is at the office late one night when she hears voices talking in a rare language known as Ku. The voices discuss a plot to assasinate the African dicatator named Zuwanie, inside the United Nations. Zuwanie, the dictator of Matobo, will be speaking to the General Assembly to defend his policies but many people see him as a murderer and many more people want him dead. Silvia reports the conversation she heard to the authorities and she has a handful Secret Service agents assinged to protect both her and Zuwanie (when he arrives in New York). Two of those agents include Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) and Dot Woods (Catherine Keener) and when Keller interrogates Silvia he thinks she is being vague about her past history in Zuwanie’s country of Matobo. Keller believes that Silvia is more involved in the assasination plot than she is letting on but their characters still develop a close friendship because both Silvia and Keller are tragic characters and feel an immediate bond. As the assassination date nears and more of Zuwanie’s detractors emerge from the woodwork, the plot thickens and a roller coaster ride of a movie ensues that is, from what I understand, thrilling for some and not so thrilling for others.
This is a classy thriller. The rather unlikely plot is grounded by solid performances throughout, Kidman and Penn doing a splendid job with their characters and Catherine Keener is fabulous as Penn’s sidekick. And much has been made of this being the first film that was allowed to be shot inside the UN itself. But once again it’s the reality outside the film that gives it backbone, the situation in Africa for many countries could be as depicted.

Director : Sydney Pollack
Writer : Charles Randolph,Scott Frank, Steven Zaillian
Stars : Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Jesper Christensen, Earl Cameron
Genre : Thriller




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HEAT

Having developed his skill as a master of contemporary crime drama, writer-director Michael Mann displayed every aspect of that mastery in this intelligent, character-driven thriller from 1995, which also marked the first onscreen pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The two great actors had played father and son in the separate time periods of The Godfather, Part II, but this was the first film in which the pair appeared together, and although their only scene together is brief, it's the riveting fulcrum of this high-tech cops-and-robbers scenario.
De Niro plays a master thief with highly skilled partners (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore) whose latest heist draws the attention of Pacino, plays a L.A. detective who is obsessed with his job. He has dedicated his life to put away every single criminal in the state. Much so that he has become obsessed with his job.Both are so devoted to their professions that their personal lives are a disaster. Pacino's with a wife (Diane Venora) who cheats to avoid the reality of their desolate marriage; De Niro pays the price for a life with no outside connections; and Kilmer's wife (Ashley Judd) has all but given up hope that her husband will quit his criminal career. These are men obsessed, and as De Niro and Pacino know, they'll both do whatever's necessary to bring the other down. Ostensibly the story of Vincent Hanna (Pacino), a dedicated cop hunting De Niro's ruthlessly efficient thief Neil McCauley, a major theme of the film is the male fear of emotional commitment.
Such a synopsis barely scratches the surface of Michael Mann's masterly crime epic. Painstakingly detailed, with enough characters, subplots and telling nuances to fill out half a dozen conventional thrillers, this is simply the best American crime movie - and indeed, one of the finest movies, period - in over a decade. The action scenes are better than anything produced by John Woo or Quentin Tarantino, the characterisation has a depth most American film-makers only dream of; the use of location and decor and music is inspired.
This portrait of these people and their failing personal lives sacrificed for their obsessive careers makes Heat the best film to come from Mann, and undoubtadly the best big budget crime drama to come out of the 90's. The face off between Pacino and De Niro is a film buff's dream, and the climactic LA shootout is possibly one of the best action sequences in cinematic history. The rest of the cast, which includes Jon Voight, Diane Venora, Natalie Portman, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, Kevin Gage, Denis Haysbert, William Fichtner, Danny Trejo, Henry Rollins, Tom Noonan, and Hank Azaria, does brilliant work. Truly a cinematic masterpiece.

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