Never let truth spoil you a good story

Rating: 8/10 (22 February 2015)

What is truly amazing for this film is that it is based on a real story. Really this Cambridge professor helped Britain win the war by cracking a code? He really saved millions of people? And nobody knew about it for 50 years, and he ended up killing himself after having been forced to chemical castration because of homosexuality? And we're talking of the founding father of Computer science? If I hadn't heard of Turing before, I would have a hard time believing this is a real story.
So this movie is brilliant because the story of Alan Turing is unbelievable. There's something intriguing about secret services, all these Top Secret files that few people in the world know about. Because we don't know what they say, we can expand our imagination limitlessly when wondering what do they actually say. As far as we are concerned, they might entirely change the way we conceive history. And this fact, the idea that Turing died without ever being recognized on his contribution in WWII because it was Top Secret, it's what makes you sit on the edge of the chair when watching this movie.
The problem is that, when you do a little research, you find out that the movie takes HUGE creative freedoms when it comes to truthfully depicting the story. It creates struggles where they never existed, completely alters the nature of Turing's work at Blechley Work, and makes Turing meet people who in the movie blackmail him but that he actually never met (to just name a few...). All of this to give more drama to the story. And they succeed on it.
Then yes, of course, Benedict Cumberbatch pulls out an amazing performance. The role of a compulsive genius allows him to show all his potential. The portrayal of Turing as a complete asocial allows the script to have a couple of very funny dialogues, that actually make you laugh. And Keira Knightley is not bad, but I bet the real life woman was not as beautiful.
What makes this movie not perfect? It's actually full of common places. The one cheesy tagline that is repeated two or three times across the movie. The sudden realization that owes itself to a completely unrelated comment but requires the hero to run back to his workplace. The cliché dramatic pauses before an important line. Tywin Lannister acting as Tywin Lannister, but with WWII uniform. Little things that, overall, don't spoil the movie that much. It's still very much worth watching.