"Well-made but unimportant political
thriller."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Sydney Pollack's ("Three Days of the Condor"/"Out of Africa") well-made
but unimportant political thriller (more a character driven than a plot
driven story) is set in New York City and frames its story around an assassination
plot of an African leader set to speak at the United Nations. This is the
first time the U.N. ever granted permission to film inside the building,
and the U.N. becomes the film's real star giving the story a sense of immediacy
it would never have had with a substitute setting. It also gives a credibility
to the U.N. and its goals for world peace through diplomacy that has been
ridiculed by the Bush administration, as this unfashionable narrative holds
the venerable institution up to more respect than it has received from
most of the world community in the last few years.
Silvia Broome is a U.N. translator who was born in America, educated
in Europe, but raised by her white parent farmers in a fictitious south
African country called Matobo, ruled by Dr. Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), a liberator
who became a tyrant when in power and in his old age is referred
to by his followers as The Teacher. Zuwanie is accused of genocide over
ethnic cleansing and the World Criminal Court in the Hague is set to bring
him to trial as a war criminal at the urgings of the French–while the
American diplomats urge him to resign and be spared as an exile.
One day the U.N. is evacuated because of a threat and when Silvia
returns to pick up her belongings she overhears a whispered conversation
in Ku, a dialect spoken in Matobo (it's a fictious language mixed in with
Swahili that was invented for the movie), that mentions Zuwanie will be
assassinated the day he comes to address the General Assembly to state
his case to remain in power. The next day Silvia reports it and the Secret
Service team of Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) and Dot Woods (Catherine Keener)
are sent to investigate, with Woods fresh off her assignment of telling
a naked lap dancer to not touch the oriential premier she's guarding. The
brokenhearted Tobin is grieving that his estranged dancer wife died in
an auto accident two weeks ago in a car driven by her dancer boyfriend,
and gets off to a bad start by antagonizing the subject while cynically
questioning her and challenging her to see if she's a suspect or a victim.
Tobin sees his job as transporting the tyrant in and out of the country
as quickly as possible without an incident, as if any harm that comes to
him on American soil will reflect poorly on his country. His partner Woods
is more distant and more officiously policelike with the subject while
doting over Tobin but unable to tell him that she's in love with him, even
though it's apparent if he were more observant. Silvia, as Tobin's opposite,
abrasively fences with the federal agent as he grills her and then becomes
indignant when he questions if she's telling the truth as he tries to pry
out her secrets. But they both realize the other is smart, and leave room
for a closer relationship to develop over time. They are also joined by
the white Matoban security chief Nils Lud (Jesper Christensen), a holdover
from when the Dutch ruled, who is lectured to by Tobin when he tries to
independently question Silvia. A tail is put on Silvia, and when she spots
a masked black man in her apartment, her screams scare him off as the feds
now take her claims more seriously.
Meanwhile we are constantly fed info through various sources that
helps clarify what's going down, but considerably slows the thriller down.
Tobin's immediate boss (Sydney Pollack) has the thankless utilitarian role
of clearing things up and keeping things moving whenever necessary. We
soon learn that the bloody despot's two main rivals – a former pacifist
and still socialist Ajene Xola (Curtiss I' Cook) and a Brooklyn dwelling
capitalist/rebel opportunist Kuman-Kuman (George Harris) – have put aside
their differences to unite against him. Also, Silvia's background check
reveals that the evasive lady was once deeply involved in Matobo's politics
and her former boyfriend was Xola. The opening scene is cleared up, as
we learn that Silvi's estranged older brother Simon, whom she dearly misses,
was executed at the site of a massacre in a rundown Matobo soccer stadium
by a child follower of The Teacher. But not much is made of the politics,
or what Silvia did as a young activist except she's now a believer in the
U.N. 's idealism which puts her at odds with her radical past and leaves
us forever confused about her real motives.
The film's set action piece has a Brooklyn bus explode in Crown Heights.
The finale, involving the assassination attempt during Zuwanie's speech,
seems too much like those enacted in other Hollywood thrillers to be fresh
and was drained of suspense by its too cleverly devised twists. The plot
line always seemed convoluted and the more it was explained the less likely
did it seem credible. Steven Zaillian finished the script started by Charles
Randolph and Scott Frank, who based it on the story by Martin Stellman
and Brian Ward. Longtime Pollack collaborator, the writer David Rayfiel,
in an uncredited role polishes up the script and tosses in his now much
used line from other Pollack films starting with The Slender Thread (1965),
as Penn tells Kidman: "Not getting caught in a lie is thought of in the
same way as telling the truth."
The enjoyment comes from the two masterful Method actors, the introspective
Brando-like Sean Penn searching for the truth about his role and the more
instinctive Nicole Kidman playing to the exotic foreigness her character
conveys in a rather prim way, as they play their frustrated oil and water
would-be lover roles without even touching or expressing any love except
through quiet sighs (a restrained a romance as there ever was in a movie).
The high-minded thespians act as if they were making a primer for other
less fortunate actors. They are good, but it looked too much like acting
to be great.