Movies : April 2005

27 April 2005

The Interpreter

Nicole Kidman and the views of the United Nations compound—say, I’ve been there, in that hall, was it fifth grade?—are about all the attractions this misfire can muster. Kidman plays interpreter Silvia Broome working at the international organization on Manhattan’s eastern shore who overhears a mysterious whisper late one evening in a language she knows from her life in Matobo, a (fictional) African country with a violent past and a no less violent present. When the international sign of villainy, a black Mercedes sedan, appears behind her scooter the next morning, she reports what she heard, now thinking that it refers to a plan to assassinate the strong man of Matobo, just scheduled to address the General Assembly in a few days. Somnolent and with his hair growing uncontrollably, Secret Service agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) finds her story suspicious. People will die, secrets will come out, and the prop photographs will be jaw-droppingly poor. Why is there a list of names on the back of that photograph? I don’t know, are there really color fax machines that can print duplex? Sheesh, do the contrivances and coincidences pile up. Kidman offers barely a whisper of the determined but emotionally vulnerable professional she played in The Peacemaker and from time to time I did wonder if she might have been better paired with George Clooney a second time. At least he’s got the build and the hair for the part.

129 minutes.

22 April 2005

Robots

I can’t believe this is so stupid. It’s not terrible, but the thought does come to mind from time to time. A metropolitan area with a rolled metal aesthetic out of the American fifties, encompassing Robot City and Rivet Town, is populated solely by robots who behave in ways that make sense only if one knows they are imitating humans. Son of a dishwasher Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) has an old-fashioned ambition: to be an inventor in the big city. Er, hijinks are supposed to ensue. A wealth of voice talent, some of it recognizable and some of it not, and the elaborately mechanical production design cannot sufficiently enliven the clichéd plot and routine characterizations.

93 minutes (including tease for an Ice Age sequel).

15 April 2005

Downfall

The last week of the inner circle in the underground bunker in Berlin 60 years ago this month, based in part on the memoirs of Trudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara). The last chapter of Toland’s 1976 biography was based on the same sources, so the screenplay is constrained as to the events and their sequence and while Bruno Ganz conveys with appropriate vigor the hateful, frustrated man at the center of the state decaying with every hour that commanders in the field ignore his orders, Eva Braun’s motive for marriage must go unexplained. Most chilling is Corinna Harfouch as Magda Goebbels. With its limited number of locations and array of handsome men in supporting roles, it plays more like a high quality made-for-TV movie. Not everyone will appreciate the young secretary with the flawless skin and tousled hair making her way from the bunker in a Wehrmacht helmet, then walking through the Russian advance with a cap and a blond-haired boy, but an excerpt from Blind Spot ends the film.

157 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 28-Apr-2005