20131224: Thriller Review--Cypher

Cypher

Jeremy Northam, Lucy Liu

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American/ Canadian live action feature length film, 2002, rated R, 95 minutes, SciFi, thriller.  Spoken word is in English.  Aspect, 1.85
2. IMDB: 6.8/10.0 from 22,792 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 7.5 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 61% on the meter; 66% liked it from 8,162 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 215,793 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Vincenzo Natali.
6. Starring: Lucy Liu as Rita Foster, Jeremy Northam as Morgan Sullivan, Nigel Bennett as Ed Finster, Timothy Webber as Frank Calloway, David Hewlett as Virgil C. Dunn.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Morgan takes a polygraph test for his job at Digicorp, where he is to do corporate espionage, primarily against Digicorp's rival, Sunways Systems.  He gets a new identity, Jack Thursby, and Morgan is to fill in the blanks on what personality Jack has.  His usual job is to go to conferences and listen and record speeches given by rival companies.


2. His first assignment takes him to Buffalo, where Jack represents Fairway Fragrances.  He has opportunities to prop up his cover stories, like smoking cigarettes, drinking single malt scotch, and having grown up in the south pacific islands.  He meets Rita on his first trip.  Between the first and second trip, Morgan tells his wife that her father can forget Morgan's working for him.  She tells him he can either apologise or leave the house, which I presume he did.  His next trip is to Omaha.


3. Rita intervenes: gives him meds to deal with his headaches, tells him not to turn on his pen.  He does neither, and he still gets visions and headaches.  He starts taking the meds.  He's given a cryptic way of contacting Rita.  She starts his education.  At his next convention talk, he sees something entirely different.  Her warnings save him from some very bad possibilities.  What follows is an indoctrination: he is Jack Thursby, not Morgan Sullivan; he has a different wife, and his home base is with her in a different state.


4. He makes it 'home;' there is a woman in residence who seems to know him and is warm to him, which is one huge improvement for him.  Then he's off to a job interview at Sunways where his 'neurograph' shows he's lying.  Sunways wants him to be a double agent against Digicorp.  Their security chief lets him know that his real home is up for sale, and his wife his divorcing him.  He also lets him know that Digicorp expects him to act as Jack Thursby; any sign of Morgan will result in his elimination. 


5. He finds that Rita does not work for Sunways, but for Sebastian Rooks.  Jack goes to work with Sunways; his first job is to bug his new home.  He finds that his new 'wife' is a Digicorp agent.  He seeks a way out.  Rita tells him to stay in place, so that Digicorp will think that they have established Jack within Sunways.  Rita discusses a way out via Rooks.


6. There are more surprises along the way.  Will Jack ever make it out of this complicated mess?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary  Fine, well-acted mystery-thriller set in the near future.
2. Final Rating: 10/10


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Very good.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Acting: 10/10 Lucy Liu, Jeremy Northam, Nigel Bennett, and David Hewlett were excellent.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 There seemed to be too many layers of charades at times.  I loved the ending, though, which seemed to make it all worth while.