Penn is terrific in his low-key doggedness.

Full Review | May 12, 2006

Solid, mature and finely acted, but intermittently daft.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2006

This is largely a competent, successful thriller, but observing global politics from this perspective is an uncomfortable, frustrating experience.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2006

The film's themes are disappointingly vague and unspecific, built around a fictitious African country that stands for anywhere -- and consequently nowhere.

Full Review | Sep 26, 2005

A political thriller afraid of politics and bereft of thrills.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 22, 2005

It is intelligent, intriguing, and topical, but it too often gets mired in its own good intentions, too many plot convolutions, and character ambiguities that try to pass for suspense.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 30, 2005

I was steadily absorbed by The Interpreter, even though much of the plot didn't make a great deal of sense.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2005

Some will even name drop, equating the sequence to some of the best ever put together by directors like Sturges, Dassin, Polanski, Frankenheimer and, the master of all things suspenseful, Hitchcock.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 23, 2005

Its high-mindedness has obscured the thriller's basic function -- to deliver thrills.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2005

While it pains me to beat up on Pollack, who, in addition to being a consistently wonderful actor, is at least attempting to make movies the old-fashioned way, it pains me more to actually sit through his movies.

Full Review | Apr 23, 2005

As a straight-ahead thriller, the movie is enjoyable and stirring much of the time.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2005

You're left with admirable, even noble, wreckage, but wreckage it is.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2005

Rare is the movie where the performances can make up for an almost fatally flawed script. This is one of them.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

Ticks along like a freshly wound-up clock, smart and precise, keeping its audience just breathless enough not to notice that more than two hours have passed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

It's hard to know what is more impressive, the artistry of The Interpreter or the sheer craft of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

An intelligent, old-fashioned nail-biter.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

An uncommonly well-crafted political thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

Where the bricks of plot lack the mortar of credibility, there ain't much building going on.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 22, 2005

Pollack drives this movie as if it's a well-tuned automobile, taking turns smoothly, accelerating at the right moments then easing off the gas pedal without ever losing momentum.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Apr 22, 2005

When the film trusts the audience, The Interpreter is an intriguing outing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005