Nicole Kidman’s one of the finest pieces of ass on the planet. That said, in nearly every one of her movies Kidman’s near to nearly undressed or undressed in some degree or fashion. Okay, I’m wrong. There was Cold Mountain where Kidman’s up to her neck in southern accents and petticoats while sporting a tanning salon tan smack dab in the middle of the Civil War. In The Interpreter, a film that desperately needs Kidman baring some form of tanned epidermis, there’s also a requisition for its own translator, being the fact that Kidman works for the U.N.

Now here’s where we get into some brutally unfair comparisons with Three Days of the Condor. At least that’s what the press is trying to make of it. That’s because both films are directed by Sydney Pollack. Both films take place in New York. Both films feature a main character who rides a scooter to work [Robert Redford in Condor]; both star pretty blonds and both are supposed to be thrillers. Except Condor gets the job remarkably well done complete with the essential double crosses and tangible paranoia, whereas The Interpreter taxes the viewer as to exactly what he’s supposed to be thrilled about. Oh yeah. There’s this assassination plot of a dictator which Kidman uncovers, but the film leads you to believe that she might actually be one of the ring leaders. Oh the suspense level is maddening.

Kidman’s job is to translate African guys with names like Mumbuto, Mugabe and Matobo- which sounds like an African law firm but isn’t. The reason that Kidman’s so well versed in the language is that she’s from Africa- a back story which develops as an emotionally drenching conceit- at least for her, not us. Why there’s enough pain and Third World suffering thrown in to open up another Hotel Rwanda, rooms available.

Add to this the hatching of the brilliant notion that Kidman should communicate in a spine breaking British-Afrikaner accent. The device only piles on the frustration, belaboring the viewer whose job it is to follow not only the who’s killing who plot line but Kidman’s exchanges with the rest of the cast. Throw in some African guys talking in that African way and you’re out in the woods, not First Avenue and 44th Street where the U.N. is located, with this one. Which is what I mean by having your own interpreter.

Half of what Kidman is saying on the screen is lost, and the other half is spent unnecessarily determining exactly what the fuck Sean Penn is doing in this movie.

Now don’t get me wrong. I like Penn. I think he’s got one of the best heads of hair going and is one of the most brilliant physical actors working today. Only Penn shouldn’t be working in this movie whose best attempt, necessarily, is capturing Penn essaying his famous chin quiver and beat red faux tear face. Penn gets to do a lot of the same thing in Mystic River which won him an Oscar. That’s because Penn’s got more of a hitch in his shorts in Mystic River. His daughter is killed, and Penn plays a grieving father – almost as well as Kiefer Sutherland in the first season of “24”. In fact, as political thrillers go, I’d recommend any of the first three seasons of “24” before even contemplating a date with The Interpreter.

Penn, as a secret service man, is assigned to investigate Kidman’s claims of the intended assassination of the dictator, once a noble cause idealist, but who as of late has been responsible for murdering her family. Before long, you figure Nicole’s going to be packing heat and pulling a Charlie Bronson when the old boy gets into town to speak to The General Assembly. But Penn has his head so far up his ass over his dead ex-wife who was killed in an automobile accident 23 days earlier, that he doesn’t see any of this coming, preferring, instead, a little bit of binocularism as he stakes out Kidman’s apartment from across the street. By this time the plot’s so frayed at the edges that you’re guessing which store she shops at to furnish her pad- Pier One or Cost Plus. Maybe a little bit of both. But that’s subject to interpretation.