In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king

Rating: 6/10 (14 December 2012)

This is another one of those movies based upon Phillip K Dick's rather unusual science-fiction short stories. In relation to this movie and also to Dick, I have had people simply promote both to no end, Dick as a visionary, and this movie as demonstrating the idea of human sin and redemption. Look, in our Western society, the narrative of sin and salvation has been passed down for the last two thousand years, the the idea is not so much that we sin, but that others sin against us and that we desire to go to no end to protect ourselves from that sin.
This is where this film comes in. America is a very violent nation, with a huge murder rate, even today. However, three unusual people were discovered that could predict a murder before it happened, and a special unit was established to use this information to prevent murders. As such there has been no murder in Washington DC for at least six years, but the question really does come down to what is the cost, and also whether such premonitions can be actually used to convict somebody of a crime.
The idea of an attempt is always a grey legal area where there is no clear cut answer. A man walking into a shop with a gun, pointing it at the clerk, and demanding money but not getting any for whatever reason, is an attempt that is pretty clear cut. However a group of stoned teenagers joking about robbing a bank, and even coming up with a plan, but not putting it into execution, is a completely different story. This is where the grey area of this film comes in, because too much faith is based upon the accuracy of these pre-cogs. The main character, days before actually committing the murder, is put on a wanted list, despite the fact that the whole murder is a set up. In fact, the culprit, our hero, does not even realise at the time that he is going to commit a murder, yet he is still guilty based upon such evidence.
This is something that even now our society is struggling with since terrorists have become more brazen in their attempts to wreck havoc. We want to be protected from sin, but we are not willing to give up our freedom for that protection. In many cities today we cannot walk around without being on film, and in a way that is said to protect us from possible terrorists, but in another way it is a means of keeping track of people who might be considered a danger to society, and even then, who is the one who determines what is dangerous and what is not dangerous.
In the film we have a future where everybody is identified through their eye scans, however these eye scans are also used as a means to advertise directly to us, yet because of this, nobody can hide. The computer knows exactly where you are at every time of the day. As is seen at the beginning of the film, the only way to free yourself from this is to actually remove your eyes, which is what the drug dealer does. However, at what cost does this come? Even then, despite the fact that we have our eyes, in many cases we are blind to the reality that is around us. We are blind to the fact that even our thoughts can convict us, and the mere setting up of a process that will ultimately lead to a murder, despite the murder never being committed, will result in you going to hell.