Philip Dick strikes again

Rating: Null/10 (22 June 2002)

Top billing for Minority Report will go to the infamous Steven Spielberg. But as the creator of the intense but crushingly sentimental Saving Private Ryan, and the promising but cruelly lobotomized AI, it's clear he's only part of this puzzle. The credit for what is probably one of the most vital, important, and timely science fiction movies of the 21st century so far ultimately goes to two dead men; the also-infamous Philip K. Dick (the criminal mastermind behind such diverse works as Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Screamers), and Spielberg's eccentric British alter-ego, Stanley Kubrick, whose influence (along with a series of touching allusions) haunt this film like a frightening but ultimately benevolent ghost. With uncharacteristic restraint, Spielberg admits as much, as his `precognitive' tells the distraught Tom Cruise, `the dead watch, and help the living.'
In fact, uncharacteristic restraint is the surprising hallmark of this movie, making one think that perhaps in Dick, Spielberg has finally met his match. A dividend of his material's prolific genius, the moviemakers seem at last capable of letting facts settle in to place quietly and the difficult moral and philosophical dimensions of the story hang true, an almost unknown level of class from a moviemaking culture in general and a filmmaker in particular so accustomed to black-and-white morality tales and audience-bludgeoning simplicity.
The story of psychics who are forced to dream an endless string of murders so the police can prevent them is more than just unsettling in its alienness; it represents a comforting and powerful weapon against violence, depicted in all of its terrifying spectacle so that we understand what is at stake; it's allowed to enter the ancient struggle to defend the myth of choice - to feel that, despite all the growing evidence, we determine our own fate through the mystical agency of free will. It shows us, and quietly tells us, that no human system can ever be perfect. Finally, we are led back to the foundations of our democracy - wordlessly reminded that the architects of our country knowingly intended that `a hundred criminals go free rather than one innocent be deprived of their freedom' - and that they had very good reasons for their beliefs.
Minority Report knowingly makes a beautiful example of how a society's weaknesses are often its strengths: the more powerful and technocratic a state, the more awful it is when bent towards abuse. Yet the movie never preaches, and it never pretends to give answers it doesn't have. Dick, and I think even Kubrick, would be proud.
For better or worse, Spielberg's most often used talent these days is his ability to preside over a state-of-the-art technical production with verve and style, to truly use the CG rather than be used by it, and he does so masterfully; just as in AI, the sets and the effects are stunning, yet equally as restrained and refined as the story. His cadre of production designers, editors and choreographers has created pacing and rendered action sequences so breathtaking that they risk belying the humble and earnest genius of the script.
Attention should be paid to the always-neglected screenwriters, who in this case are Scott Frank, author of the surprisingly watchable Out of Sight as well as the excellent Dead Again, and the unknown Jon Cohen, who has apparently started very big. Their science fiction summer blockbuster has more social conscience than most of its mainstream, independent and art house contemporaries, and it is not uncommon to see tears in the theater, lit by the closing credits. It will be very interesting to see how they top this effort.