Subject: Review: Minority Report (2002)

From: Dennis Schwartz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 18:31:43 -0000

MINORITY REPORT (director: Steven Spielberg; screenwriters: Philip K. Dick
(short story)/Scott Frank/Jon Cohen; cinematographer: Janusz Kaminski; editor:
Michael Kahn; music: John Williams; cast: Tom Cruise (Detective Chief John
Anderton), Samantha Morton (Agatha), Max von Sydow (Director Lamar Burgess),
Steve Harris (Jad), Neal McDonough (Officer Gordon Fletcher), Patrick Kilpatrick
(Knott), Jessica Capshaw (Evanna), Colin Farrell (Danny Witwer), Daniel London
(Wally the Caretaker), Michael Dickman (Arthur), Matthew Dickman (Dashiell), Tim
Blake Nelson (Gideon), Jason Antoon (Rufus Riley, Cyber Parlor Operator),
Jessica Harper (Anne Lively), Peter Stormare (Dr. Eddie Solomon), Mike Binder
(Leo Crow), Kathryn Morris (Lara Anderton), Lois Smith (Dr. Iris Hineman);
Runtime: 135; 20th Century Fox/DreamWorks; 2002) 

"Mainstream films don't get any better than this one." 

Steven Spielberg follows his brilliant A.I. with another brilliantly dark and
brooding inventive futuristic sci-fi thriller that plays like film noir and is
derivative of films such as "Blade Runner." It is adapted from a short story by
one of the great sci-fi writers, Philip K. Dick (he wrote Blade Runner).
Spielberg made Dick's short work into his lengthy 135 minute film by getting
screenwriters Scott Frank and Jon Cohen to brighten up some of Dick's more
paranoic visions in their effort to make the film more universally appealing and
easier for the public to comprehend. It asks the question, could one trust the
system to ever bring crime under complete control without one's freedoms being
usurped! By showing that it is impossible to always be sure an innocent person
is not convicted of a crime, Spielberg's thought-provoking film challenges us to
rethink how we as a country are handling our crime problem. He shows how an
innocent person can be victimized by even a flawless mechanical system, as he
emphatically states that we shouldn't trust our eyes alone to tell us what we
see. It also shows how even if you knew a crime was to happen, there might be
other factors that make even this visionary knowledge not enough to be
conclusive--as there are always human factors to consider. 

The director is starting to get heavier in his films and is starting to take on
the mantle of Stanley Kubrick, as he is looking more like this country's next
resident film genius instead of the purveyor of pop culture some might have
thought he would never let go of. He still does what he does best, tell a
visually pleasing story, though his scripts have become more poetical and less
concerned with feeding the public their usual diet of pap. This film is less
lyrical than A.I. and more given to ready-made explanations, but Spielberg's
story is so strong and his visualizations are so refreshing that he can't really
be faulted for some lingering flaws leftover from his past filmmaking. The
film's weakest point was the so-so ending, which couldn't match the
effectiveness of the films startling beginning when it presented its riveting
premise by hunting down a potential killer and the action filled middle part
where the cop is on-the-run. 

The story is set in 2054 in Washington, D.C., where a crime wave in homicides is
stopped by a novel program called Pre-Crime. A Pre-Crime agency has been
successfully established in the District of Columbia for the past six years and
has stopped all murders since its inception. The director and founder is the
elderly Lamar Burgess (Sydow), and the unit's chief of police is Burgess'
hand-picked protege, John Anderton (Cruise). John's 9- year old son Sean was
abducted from a crowded swimming pool with his father present and he was never
located, which gave John the incentive to help others who might have their lives
destroyed by crime. John was so much in love with his son and so affected by the
crime that he quit the police force and was further saddened that his wife
(Kathryn Morris) divorced him because she couldn't face looking at him and being
reminded of her son. The very capable policeman was recruited to work for Lamar
at the program's inception and is the credible spokesman for the program as it
attempts to get funding to go national. He wholeheartedly buys into the agency's
slogan "That which keeps us safe also keeps us free." 

The program works through the recorded visualizations of three individuals,
called Pre-Cogs--the female Agatha (Morton) and the twin males Arthur and
Dashiell---who are kept in a nutrient-enriched pool of water and are cared for
only by their caretaker Wally while they lie in an unconscious dream state.
Whenever they see a murder about to happen a red or brown ball drops into the
hands of a supervisor technician Jad (Harris) and the department's special
police force goes into action. The system is supposed to be flawless because all
three Pre-Cogs see the same vision, but the female is the key to the program
since her visions are the strongest. 

The film opens as a "Red Ball Alert" flashes (this signals a crime of passion is
about to take place and the crime could happen at any moment. The other crimes
get brown balls and they signal a premeditated crime to take place in about 4
days). John and a team of officers led by Gordon Fletcher descend on the
suburban house of a husband who discovers his wife has taken a lover and he aims
to murder his wife with a scissors attack to her eyes (seeing is the metaphor of
choice throughout the film). John gets all the information he needs about the
crime that will soon happen by standing in front of a blank video screen with
his specially lined flashing gloves and in a series of dance movements before
it, images appear on the screen. The gloves are lined with special
hologram-projectors that are sensitive to the light. 

John and his team are upset that the attorney general is looking for flaws in
the program and seems intent on wanting to cut federal funding for it, probably
because he's competitive with this department and jealously wants the glory of
fighting crime to go his way. The AG has given his special Department of Justice
investigator, Danny Witwer (Farrell), carte blank powers to probe into the
program before the upcoming national referendum. Soon John is uncovered by the
bureaucratic Witwer as a doper (he doesn't realize that John takes the drugs to
dream of the past and maybe get clues about the kidnapping of his son). John
also becomes accused of planning a Pre-Crime against someone he doesn't even
know, Leo Crow. He has no way of clearing himself, as he goes on the run,
believing that he's being setup by Witwer. In order to verify if the Pre-Cogs
are always right and that he could become a murderer even if he knows he can't
be one, he breaks into the uniquely secure greenhouse of the eccentric Dr. Iris
Hineman (Lois Smith), the one who accidently discovered that the specially
selected Pre-Cogs were capable of seeing a future murder. The inventor was only
trying to cure the mentally afflicted from their grief and nightmares by
conducting experiments on them and surprisingly found that they were sensitized
to see crimes in the future. But she no longer believes in the program as being
an ethical or foolproof one, and tells John that his best chance of proving his
innocence is getting to Agatha and downloading her visions. She also tells him
something he didn't realize, that there's a 'minority report' given if all three
don't collectively agree on what they see and that report would indicate a flaw
in the program. The program is only perfect when all three agree, therefore
Cruise is now searching to see if there's a minority report on him. There's
therefore the possibility that Cruise, not knowing about this glitch in the
system, might have arrested an innocent person with no chance of him clearing
his name. 

There are great chase scenes with Mr. Cruise sprinting away from the police and
trying to do anything to survive, even if he has to leap from great heights. In
one scene computer-generated spiders try and track him down in a house search by
performing a retinal scan on identities and they are so frighteningly robotic
and real looking that the scene becomes an unforgettable one. Cars motor along
at high speeds on magnetic cushions. Popular advertisements on walls or in
stores address the individual consumer with personal info they have gathered
about them, as the director uses this as a satire on popular culture. There are
many colorful characters on Cruises's 'road to prove his innocence' including
Tim Blake Nelson as Gideon, the organ-playing prison keeper of the ones the
Pre-Crime unit arrests; Peter Stormare as the maniacal doctor who gives Cruise a
pair of replacement eyes so he can't be identified while on the run; and, Jason
Antoon as Rufus Riley, a self-promoting mall operator of a pornographic Cyber
Parlor, who is forced to help Cruise record videos. 

The photography by Janusz Kaminski is stylishly beautiful and sets a vivid mood
of passion when red is the predominant screen color and is strikenly sharp when
a chrome-like color dominates and the film sets a reflective mood. The metallic
tone of the film always leaves a frenetic and tense look, and with the many plot
twists and different subjects to think about this film becomes both emotionally
and intellectually filling. Mr. Cruise emerges as a big-name star who can act,
as he gives his best performance since "Eyes Wide Shut," in an action film that
he's actually more suited for. The other special performance, a Supporting
Actress Oscar nominating one, comes from Samantha Morton's strange role as a
Pre-Cog, where she's almost mute but is so expressive that her silence feels as
if she's actually communicating her feelings by voice. 

This sci-fi film might not be exactly for the masses as it relies more on ideas
and complex emotional feelings rather than trying to please the audience with a
sense of cheer, but it is a brilliant example of how a creative filmmaker can be
both entertaining and artistic to create a film that can possibly appeal to an
audience that wants more from a thriller than the usual thrills it has been
getting from so many commercially made action films. Mainstream films don't get
any better than this one. 

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz 

REVIEWED ON 6/27/2002     GRADE: A + 

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" 

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED   DENNIS SCHWARTZ 

http://www.sover.net/~ozus

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