People have come to expect Kidman and Penn to turn out stellar movies, but sometimes not even the acting can make up for a slow plot.

“The Interpreter.” directed by Sydney Pollack and staring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn and Catherine Keener, is a film about United Nations interpreter Silvia Broome (Kidman) who stumbles upon a conspiracy to assassinate the president of an African nation as he addresses the U.N. General Assembly concerning atrocities perpetrated under his regime.

When Broome brings the murder plot to the attention of authorities, Secret Service agents Tobin Keller (Penn) and Dot Woods (Keener) are assigned to investigate Broome's claims and thwart the conspiracy, though they quickly find themselves thrust into the roles of Broome's protectors now that she has become a target of the assassins as well.

The plot unfolds as layer upon layer of intrigue and deception are revealed, though you really have to endure about half of the film’s 135 minutes before it develops the intensity that should have been present throughout.

Unfortunately, most of the film’s first hour is spent developing cookie-cutter characters that don't really grab your interest. If anything carries you through the muck, it's a sprinkling of Keller's partner Woods. Woods not only brings a hard-assed approach to the task at hand but supplies the film with brief bits of comic relief through her dry sense of humor, something that the rest of the cast seems to pick up later in the film.

Eventually the pace of the film does quicken and when all the pieces fall into place you're left with a conclusion that was heavily foreshadowed earlier in the film.

If anything, one can hope that this film will bring a raised awareness to the real-life violence and political turmoil that continues to plague war-torn African nations to this day. Perhaps the resources used to fund this picture could have been put to better use actually helping those who have been affected by the chaos that afflicts their homeland.

“The Interpreter” opens nationwide today and is rated PG-13 for violence, some sexual content and language.