"...you don't choose the things you believe in, they choose you."

Rating: 9/10 (21 April 2018)

Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) would have done well not to make my summary statement listed above to John Anderton (Tom Cruise). With all that futuristic technology at his disposal, he should have known it would come back to haunt him.
I thought this was a well constructed sc-fi mystery thriller based on a Philip K. Dick short story. Since the picture was made all the way back in 2002, I'm kind of surprised we don't have the kind of targeted advertising shown in the film smacking us in the face yet. Just as well, pop-ups on one's computer screen are annoying enough as it is. At the heart of the story is an idea that I believe will be the downfall of a lot of visionary technology that scientists and corporations expect for the future, that being the fallibility of the human factor. As just one example, driver-less cars. Sounds great on paper but they're already killing people.
There's just one problem in the script that marred an almost perfect screenplay. Once John Anderton was identified as a red ball murderer, his retina scan clearance should have been automatically removed from the Precrime database. But it wasn't, and if you think about it, that lends credence to the argument I just mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Since that clearance wasn't removed automatically (why not?), then some human in charge screwed up.
But with that minor nit-pick aside, I thought this was a well paced thriller, and the final confrontation between Anderton and Lamar had all the classic elements of a Star Trek style conundrum. In other words, if Lamar doesn't kill John, then the precogs are wrong, in which case Precrime gets dismantled. But if Lamar does kill John, the precogs are proven right, but he gets arrested and put away in prison. So the next best alternative.....