Minority Report
Produced by
Dreamworks Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox.
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Jon Cohen & Scott Frank, based on the short story by Philip K.
Dick
Featuring Tom Cruise, Max Von Sydow, Samantha Morton,
Colin Farrell, Kathryn Morris
Running
time: 145 minutes. Rated PG-13
Released to
movie theaters in June 2002.
Reviewed by Hans Sherrer (
Wow! Is a one word summary of
Minority Report.
A futuristic mystery thriller
set in the
Minority Report
works so well in no small part because perhaps for the first time in his
career, front man Tom Cruise succeeds in making you forget that he is Tom Cruise. It is fitting that he
makes the movie work on the screen, because he was the movie’s driving force
off the screen. After Cruise bought the movie rights he sold Steven Spielberg
on the idea of directing the movie and having Dreamworks
produce it. Cruise is ably supported by a well chosen cast that includes Max
von Sydow.
Based on a Philip K. Dick’s
1956 short story of the same name, Minority
Report revolves around the simple idea that in the not too distant future
the psyche of gifted humans, called Precogs, are
melded with computer technology to identify a person who will commit a murder. The Precogs
foretelling of what will come to pass enables a would
be murderer to be to be tracked down and captured by a special Precrime police unit prior to committing his or her crime.
Tom Cruise is the head of the Precrime unit, and it
roams around in black helicopters and kicks open doors without a warrant while
functioning as a quasi-renegade group that is backed by the power and authority
of the government. In a futuristic twist on the lynch mobs of old, would be
murderers are tried, convicted and sentenced at the time they are taken into
custody by Precrime officers. The sentence pronounced
and executed by Precrime on those it captures is
always the same: condemnment to the living death of
existing in a limbo state created by an electronic device referred to as a
“halo” that is placed on the person’s head.
One of the movies twists is
when Cruise is identified by the Precogs as a
murderer to be. He instantly had an “ah ha” moment realizing the injustice of
being “haloed” without having committed a crime, and he went from being the
hunter to one of those hunted by his former Precrime
colleagues.
With the notable exception of
a cartoonish and obviously fake scene that has Tom
Cruise jumping across the roof of cars that are traveling for what seems like
hours down a vertical freeway, the
special effects in Minority Report
have the eerie feeling of being a visualization of what is only a step away
from being reality. The Precrime unit, for example,
has small electronic “spiders” that relentlessly search in packs for the heat
of a human body. When a person is found, a spider climbs up them and shines a
laser beam in one of their eyes to conduct a retinal scan that identifies the
person from a master government database. That is so close to what is real that
it can't be called science fiction. It is hard to even call it futuristic. Not
only is there an ongoing debate over directly linking everyone in the U.S. to a
national database that would enable Americans to be easily tracked by the
government, but it was recently reported that the U.S. Government has financed
the development of electronic monitoring devices the size of grains of sand
designed to transmit for centuries.
Borrowing a page from how insecticides are now sprayed, helicopters could
spread these “sand grains” through the air over populated areas. They would
then monitor large numbers of people wherever they land.
Even the concept that gifted Precogs can foretell the future is reflected in the
publicity given to remote viewing and the use of brain scans to try and
establish what a person has or has not done. Implicit in Minority Report's storyline is the profound question of where does
freewill begin or end and predestination take over?
Minority Report
is just too smashingly good to spoil by spilling the beans on any more of the
story. I will note, however, that of
the glowing reviews I've seen for the movie, not a one mentions what underlies
the movies name. That silence about the meaning of the movie’s title is odd. It
seems that as far as mainstream reviewers are concerned, it would have made no
difference to them if the title was, Tom
Cruise Goes To 2054. Yet, the flow of the movie is towards explaining in
its final scenes why it is called Minority Report. Those reviewers also failed to mention the
profound implications Minority Report’s
theme has for exposing the present day misjustice imposed on the untold
thousands of innocent men and women who are wrongly accused, prosecuted,
convicted, sentenced and imprisoned every year in this country. Minority Report makes it crystal clear
that a supposition of possible
wrongdoing by someone is radically different than physical proof they actually
committed a crime.
Whether you are in the mood
for an above average action thriller, an offbeat mystery, a futuristic drama,
or a thoughtful commentary on the danger of accusing and punishing people of
criminal wrongdoing in the absence of physical proof they are guilty, Minority Report could be a grand time at
the movies for you.
THE END