Exotic and even unlikely: Kidman photo: Phil Bray The Interpreter Directed by Sydney Pollack Universal, opens April 22 more film most popular most commented Kabluey Tracking Shots by Jim Ridley Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic by McCann, Ruth Diminished Capacity Tracking Shots by Nick Pinkerton Holding Trevor Tracking Shots by Julia Wallace We Are Together Tracking Shots by Ella Taylor Trash Talking With Harvey Weinstein by Tony Ortega Coming and Then Licking It Up. Is This a Gay Thing? Savage Love by Dan Savage At Home With Competitive Swallowers Crazy Legs and Eater X by Andy Kropa Gene Simmons and the Whores He Admires La Dolce Musto by Michael Musto Columbia's Knotty Noose Problem by Graham Rayman The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal' (17) Nat Hentoff Scientology's Crushing Defeat (15) Tony Ortega Runnin' Scared: From Brooklyn, a Rap Campaign Against Tight Clothes (9) Runnin' Scared: Arcynta Ali Childs Runnin' Scared: The City Pitted Kids Against Artists in the East Village (6) Runnin' Scared: Chloé A. Hilliard Savage Love: My Boyfriend Almost Fathered a Lesbian Couple's Baby?!? (5) Savage Love: Dan Savage

Pollack, whose Three Days of the Condor was a credible exercise in '70s political paranoia, handles the action with satisfying panache, although pyrotechnics ultimately take a back seat to histrionics. Nicole Kidman's evasive translator of mystery is investigated by Sean Penn's grimly brokenhearted federal agent once she overhears what might be a plot to assassinate Matobo's bloody tyrant when he addresses the General Assembly. More prim in this role than gorgeous, Kidman brings a plausible intensity to the role of a U.N. true believer with a hidden agenda. Her willingness to engage in personal diplomacy, even as a small army of cops pirouettes around the city discovering bombs and bodies, is a beacon of irrationality in a script whose occasional lack of clarity may have something to do with the efforts of five credited writers.

Given her résumé, the Kidman character is an exotic—and even unlikely—creature, usefully fueling Penn's annoyed but fascinated incredulity. The principals don't exactly fall in love—too much of the movie is fueled by their antipathy—but they have two showstopping scenes in which, maxing out on conviction, they suggest two star acting students thrown together to show their classmates how it's done. Adding to the Method flavor, Actors Studio alum Pollack casts himself as a sort of director, periodically popping into the action to advise Penn or explain that "we've got a credible threat." (The Interpreter is a distant descendant of '30s Hitchcock films like Sabotage and The 39 Steps—does Pollack think that he's Hitchcock? For anyone who recognizes him, his cameos function as a genuine distraction.)

The Interpreter is not only old-fashioned but unfashionable—it flies in the face of U.S. unilateralism in giving the U.N. more glamour and credibility than at any time since the old trick-or-treat-for-UNICEF days. Indeed, it's being heavily promoted as the first movie ever allowed to use U.N. interiors as a location. Not so: Hitchcock may have been denied permission for North by Northwest in 1959 and DreamWorks for The Peacemaker in 1997, but 52 years ago, director Maxwell Shane managed to use the unfinished U.N. building for the climax of The Glass Wall.

A precursor of Spielberg's The Terminal starring Vittorio Gassman as a Hungarian concentration camp survivor attempting to illegally enter the U.S., this unusual left-liberal Cold War artifact (brought to my attention by Bill Horrigan of the Wexner Center) is rich with New York City locations. Not only is The Glass Wall not anti-Communist, it offers the added kick of Gloria Grahame as an exploited factory worker.