Starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, and Catherine Keener. Rated PG.

The 1970s were a great time for Manhattan-based political thrillers, and in 1975 Sydney Pollack directed one of the era's best, Three Days of the Condor. Condor owed as much to the cold-fire chemistry of Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway-two great actors in their prime-as it did to its Cold War plot about deadly deception in the CIA.

Pollack's newest, The Interpreter, is not only a return to geopolitical intrigue and the streets of New York, it's also a veteran director's return to form, and, as in Condor, Pollack has enlisted two great actors in their prime, Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, to flesh it out.

Kidman plays Silvia Broome, a United Nations interpreter from the tiny (fictional) African nation of Matobo who accidentally overhears a plan to assassinate the genocidal Matoboan dictator, Edmund Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), during his imminent visit to the U.N. Doubt, however, is cast upon Broome when it's learned that she may have her own score to settle with Zuwanie. As a result, she is questioned by two Secret Service agents, played with NYPD Blue-style nonchalance by Penn and Catherine Keener. At that point, The Interpreter masterfully builds tension (in the tradition of The Manchurian Candidate or The Parallax View) right to the moment when Zuwanie takes the podium in the U.N. General Assembly.

Porcelain-faced Kidman is an Oscar-worthy study in quiet torment. A listener by trade, Silvia chooses her words carefully and barely speaks above a determined whisper.

Penn's unforced, businesslike approach to the role of Agent Tobin Keller shows the influence of his hero, John Cassavetes. Penn lets Keller's interior pain-his wife has recently died in a car accident-bubble just below the flesh, like the wire holding together a papier-míƒ ¢ché sculpture. Together, Kidman and Penn breathe much-needed life into the script's West Wing-like verbal sparring.

Although the lovely Keener gives her all to the dot-sized role of Agent Dot Woods, the rightful third star of the film is the United Nations itself. Cinematographer Darius Khondji doesn't squander the film's unprecedented UN access, capturing it inside and out with a succession of beautifully composed shots that lend the film an almost documentarian authenticity.

The Interpreter does feature some questionable and implausible plot twists (we won't spoil them here) but it is ultimately a superb, old-school nail biter, thanks to Kidman, Penn, and old hand Pollack. Like another elder gent of American film, Clint Eastwood, Pollack's sense of pacing and ability to interpret the minutiae of human interaction have only improved with age.