詹姆斯为《翻译风波》这部颇具思想性的惊悚片营造出充满智慧闪光又让人感觉冷飕飕的音乐气质。根据剧情，他不但在音乐中融合了非洲音乐和传统歌曲，而且紧紧把握住女主角尼可基德曼的人物主线，音乐的处理总是徘徊在现代与游历之间，既符合影片中人物的心境，又与纽约这个城市大背景环环相扣。单曲《Simon's Journals》是展现女主角情感场景的重要线索，非洲打击乐的韵律使得这部分的电影场面更具备震撼力，是一大亮点。第十二和第十三首单曲《Zuwanie Arrival at Un》和《Assassin》是值得一再品位的精品。这两首曲目是贯穿整部电影的主旋律，又是凝聚影片结束前最后十分钟结晶体，将暗杀密谋的罪恶一一揭开。 James Newton Howard's score for director Sydney Pollack's espionage thriller The Interpreter is dutifully chilly and elegant, forgoing the brassy bombast of the summer blockbuster and focusing on serving as a non-intrusive background to illuminate the furrowing brows of Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. Howard, who has mined similar territory for M. Night Shyamalan, phones in enough atmosphere to cover three new seasons of The X-Files, relying on drawn-out, two-chord motifs with the occasional flash of electronica and Norwegian worldbeat siren Kirsten Brten Berg to provide almost constant tension.