Nicole Kidman stars as African-born U.N. interpreter Silvia Broome, who inadvertently overhears a death threat against an African head of state scheduled to address the United Nation's General Assembly. Realizing she's become a target of the assassins as well, Silvia's desperate to thwart the plot...if only she can survive long enough to get someone to believe her. Sean Penn is Tobin Keller, the federal agent charged with protecting the interpreter, who nonetheless suspects she may not be telling the whole truth. Silvia and Tobin, by nature, see life from different points of view: one, a U.N. interpreter, believes in the power and sanctity of words; the other, a Secret Service agent, believes in reading people based on their behavior, no matter what is said.

There are a lot of good things that could be said about the movie as well as a lot of bad things too. The movie is a good suspense type of thriller that does a great job at keeping you riveted to the screen and the story but in the end it just fails to impress or leave that memorable of an appeal on you. Reminded recently of the stunning film Hotel Rwanda the film takes on almost a plea for peace in some African countries but never really tries to develop that story rather just using it as a backdrop to try and get you to care for the characters, which isn’t necessary. Using real events to try and make your story seem more real is a little hokey at best and anybody who would buy Nichole Kidman as a Matoban peacemaker is just fooling themselves. The movie was tense it was suspenseful and for the part enjoyable but the constant foreshadowing ruined the end of the movie and the characters never seemed that real to begin with.

What has become of Nicole Kidman, has she simply let academy fame go to her head. After the miserable movie Birth she now finds herself cast in a role that never truly fit her trying to make up for a horrific movie and reenter the mainstream once more. She really needs to decide if she is that daring independent actor or the mainstream churning cookie cutter actress. The story while tense was also more of your cookie cutter variety where any actor or actress could have been inserted with similar results they just happened to choose Nicole Kidman for the role is all. The movie will do ok in the theatres and probably even better on video and while it was a good movie it just let to much go wrong to be great or even that memorable.
3 stars out of 5