Saturday, November 1 - Movies

The Age

Thursday October 30, 2008

SCOTT MURRAY

The Interpreter (2005)

Channel Ten, 8.30pm

The late Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor is one of the greatest political thrillers ever made. In 1975, many dismissed it as a "paranoia movie"; but its back-story of US plans to invade a Middle East country to "secure" its oilfields has hardly proved to be fanciful. In 2005's The Interpreter - Pollack's first revisiting of this terrain since Condor - Nicole Kidman plays Silvia Broome. Working as a United Nations interpreter, she overhears plans to assassinate an African head of state. With her life in danger, protection should come from Secret Service agent Keller (Sean Penn), but Pollack has well taught us not to trust government spooks. Kidman is dazzling at the start, but her performance is so monotone that ultimately it bores. Penn, at the time fresh from Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, plays his role as if at an Actor's Studio workshop; it is all Method and no credibility. But there is still enough cleverly built tension and elegant visual style to remind us of why Pollack was way ahead of most of his contemporaries.

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Channel Nine, 7.30pm

Sydney Pollack's favourite screenwriter was Alvin Sargent (Bobby Deerfield, Ordinary People). It is an extraordinary and wonderful fact that the writer of Spider-Man2 and co-writer of its sequel is none other than the now 81-year-old Sargent. He brings a sobering view to this study of a young man battling his call to goodness. -- SCOTT MURRAY

© 2008 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home