Minority Report

Plot synopsis:
In Washington, D.C. in the year 2054, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is head of a new police force called "PreCrime," which has completely eradicated murder in the DC area, by allowing the police to stop murders before they can even be committed. Data is obtained from "PreCogs," three mutated humans who can see into the future. When the PreCogs detect that a murder is going to be committed, an automated system processes two painted wooden balls: one with the name of the perpetrator(s) engraved into it, and one with the name of the victim(s) engraved into it (the system itself being designed to be tamperproof). The color of the ball indicates what kind of murder it will be: a brown ball indicates a premeditated murder, which the PreCogs can predict up to four days before it is committed. A red ball indicates a crime of passion, which, due to the lack of premeditation, cannot be seen until often no less than an hour before it will be committed.The only three things that the PreCogs can predict are the victim or victims, the perpetrator, the exact date and time of the crime, and the exact sequence of events that lead up to the crime. They do not pinpoint the location. Thus, Anderton and his team have to perform a meticulous process called "scrubbing", where they process the images produced from the precogs' visions in order to locate telltale clues and thus narrow down the location. Once they are certain of the location, the team flies there to thwart the crime. They then secure the culprit by "haloing" him (a device placed around his head that renders him fully incapacitated).After the suspect has been apprehended, the murder reappears on the displays. As it turns out, the PreCogs sometimes think about a crime that has been stopped, and that these "echo" images are deleted from the system.As the movie starts, Anderton's team receives an early morning Red Ball case. The perpetrator is going to be a male in his 40s named Howard Marks, and the victims are going to be his wife Sarah and another man named Donald Dubin, and the crime is going to be committed at exactly 8:04 a.m, which is 24 minutes from now. Anderton goes to work scrubbing the visions produced by the PreCogs. The visions show that Howard is going to catch Sarah in bed with Dubin after coming back to retrieve his glasses, then will viciously stab them both to death with a pair of scissors.Anderton learns there are six people named Howard Marks. Through facial comparison between the 'visions' and the drivers' license photos, he's able to determine which one they're after. He gives an order for the police to send a squad car to the address. However, there's a problem: Howard doesn't live there anymore as his family moved a few weeks prior and none of his old neighbors know where he lives now.At this point, Anderton is momentarily distracted by the arrival of Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell), a Justice Department official who's been sent to audit the PreCrime system before the country votes on whether or not to take the system nationwide. One of Anderton's colleagues, Fletcher, explains to Witwer the basic workings of the system as Anderton continues analyzing the visions. He's able to identify the material used in the construction of the house's exterior. Then, by looking at the relative location of a kid in the background of two images of Dubin, he's able to determine that there is a park with a merry-go-round across the street from the future crime scene.Having narrowed down the location, Anderton and his team get into their flying craft and fly to the scene, arriving three minutes before the crime is to be committed. There's a new problem now: Howard's house is just one in a row of identical houses, making it impossible to know which house is the one they need to raid. Scanning each house, Anderton notices that at one of them, the front door is ajar. He calls back to the office and gets confirmation that Howard did leave the front door open when he returned to the house for his glasses. Now certain of his target, Anderton storms into the house, runs up to the bedroom, and overpowers Howard just seconds before he can stab his wife with the scissors. As Anderton's stopwatch hits zero, the rest of his team bursts in through the skylight. Howard is identified by iris scan, and is promptly arrested and "haloed" , while his wife is immediately given counseling by a trauma response unit.That evening, Anderton reminisces over home movies of his ex-wife Lara (Kathryn Morris) and the couple's missing six-year-old son, who disappeared several years before at a public swimming pool. Anderton is also shown to have an addiction to an illegal inhaled hallucinogen called Neuroin (New Heroin).The next morning, Witwer's official tour of the Precrime headquarters begins. Throughout the tour, Witwer points out there are potential questions about the ethics of the PreCogs. Anderton explains that the system is designed in a way to be practically foolproof, due to the nature of premeditation and the fact that the PreCogs see what the killer will do, not what they intend to do. At Witwer's insistence, Anderton takes him into the chamber in which the precogs are kept semiconscious in a pool of fluid similar to amniotic fluid and are wired to the Precrime computer system. After Witwer has gone, the precog Agatha (Samantha Morton) snaps fully awake, and images of a woman being murdered play across the chambers video screens.Curious as to what he's seen, Anderton goes down to Containment, where numerous other haloed Precrime assailants are kept. With the aid of a supervisor named Gideon (Tim Blake Nelson), Anderton finds the assailant who was in Agatha's Previs, though he is classified as a John Doe.Gideon attempts to pull up more information on the case, but finds that of the three precogs, Agatha's Previs is missing. As well, information on just where Ann Lively is, is also missing. The only information that the computer has on her, is that she was a single mother, who was also a Neuroin addict, but records indicate she went to a rehabilitation clinic to treat her habit.Anderton reports his findings to Precrime Director Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow), who suggests that he let the matter drop, turning his attention towards the thought that when Precrime goes nationwide, they need to find a way to protect it from larger interests. Anderton assures his mentor that he won't let that happen.Upon returning to his office, Anderton is alerted to a new murder that is to take place in 36 hours. To his shock, he is listed as the perpetrator. He does not know the victim, Leo Crow, leading him to believe that he is being set up. The caretaker of the precogs, Wally, sees the vision and gives John two minutes to leave the building before he hits the alarm. John escapes and is immediately chased by his own team and Witwer. Having trained his team, he has an advantage and escapes them through an apartment building and an automated auto assembly plant, using a car that is constructed around him.He makes his way to the residence of Dr. Iris Hineman (Lois Smith), whose research laid the groundwork for the Precrime program. Quite eccentric but still coherent, Hineman explains that the three precogs do not always agree on their visions of the future; when this happens, the one that deviates the most from the others typically is ignored. In order to establish his innocence, Anderton must determine whether this "minority report" exists and, if so, get it for himself. Anderton is puzzled as to which of the precogs would generate a minority report and Hineman tells him its the "most talented" of the three: Agatha.Since everyone is subjected to iris scans wherever they go, Anderton undergoes an eye transplant at the hands of a shady doctor. The doctor is actually one of John's past cases, whom he busted for performing questionable surgery, however, the doctor performs the procedure anyway, leaving John alone to recover.While sleeping after the surgery, he dreams about the day his son was abducted from a swimming pool, and awakens to find the Precrime team searching the building for him. Small robotic eye scanners known as "spiders" are sent into the rooms; one of them finds Anderton and scans his iris, but the surgery has succeeded and he is not recognized. Returning to the Precrime offices in disguise, Anderton removes Agatha from the precogs chamber, disrupting the trio's hive mind that makes the system work.He takes her to a hacker friend of his, who successfully extracts her vision of Crows murder for Anderton to see. However, the vision does not deviate from what he saw previously, and Anderton realizes that he doesn't have a minority report.Suddenly, Agatha begins to seizure, and the image of Ann Lively being drowned is seen again. As Anderton watches the vision, his friend alerts him to Precrime officers in their vicinity. Agatha and Anderton narrowly escape Anderton's team, by making use of strategic information provided by Agatha, who is able to predict the immediate future.Anderton tracks down Crow's address and gains entry to his apartment. Crow is not present, but he finds a pile of photographs of children, including his missing son. Anderton realizes that there is no minority report in his case and he is now going to kill Crow, whom he now blames for the kidnapping. When Crow enters, Anderton assaults him to extract a confession as Agatha pleads with Anderton not to commit this murder. Anderton is blind to her pleas and is intending to kill Crow, until the timer on his watch goes off... the time when the murder is supposed to take place. Anderton relents, and begins to read Crow his Miranda rights. Crow reveals that the photographs are doctored and were given to him to leave in the apartment in order to set up this very confrontation. His family has been promised a cash payoff only if Anderton kills him; to force this outcome, Crow grabs Anderton's gun hand, aims the weapon at himself, and pulls the trigger.After Anderton and Agatha flee, Witwer and the Precrime team arrive to investigate the crime scene. Witwer is doubtful about the "orgy of evidence" that was left behind and later discusses his misgiving with Burgess, bringing up the Lively case as well. He now has all three precogs records of that murder, but slight differences between them lead him to deduce what really happened that day.Witwer shows Burgess the previsions from containment, but then reveals Agatha's which was not on file. Agatha's vision shows a very big difference, leading Witwer to postulate that the crime against Anne Lively took place at two different times.When Burgess questions Witwer, the young man posits his theory: Ann Lively's potential killer was arrested based on the matching visions of Arthur and Dashiell, but after Precrime had taken the man away, a second person (matching the same look of the potential killer), arrived and killed her in exactly the same manner. The similarity of the incidents would simply lead the precog techs to assume the act Agatha witnessed, as an 'echo' vision, and therefore, disregard it. Witwer suggests that only a member of Precrime could have the skill to manipulate the system in this way, whereupon Burgess, revealing himself as the true architect of John's framing, kills Witwer, knowing that the other precogs are unable to foresee this act with Agatha gone.As Anderton and Agatha hide in Lara's house, he realizes that he was set up because of what he knows about the Lively case. Lively is Agatha's biological mother and had been killed because she wanted to reunite with her daughter. The police finally apprehend Anderton, halo him, and return Agatha to the precogs chamber. Burgess later meets with Lara to comfort her, but when she brings up her preoccupation about the Lively case, he inadvertently refers to it as a drowning, contradicting the official precog report and implicating him in the murder.Lara rushes back to precog headquarters and forces Gideon to release Anderton, who then calls Burgess to reveal he's figured out his whole murderous modus operandi and then brings a reception in Burgess' honor to a frightening halt by screening for all to see the "minority report" that shows him killing Lively.At the same time, a new potential murder is detected by the precogs, with Anderton as victim and Burgess as perpetrator. Realizing that Anderton must be somewhere nearby, Burgess takes an antique revolver given to him as a gift and searches for him. When the two men come face to face, Anderton points out he is in a Catch-22: if Burgess shoots, he will prove that Precrime works but will be haloed for life; if he doesn't shoot, the Precrime system is proven to be unreliable. Burgess resolves the dilemma by killing himself.The Precrime program, revealed to be subject to manipulation and thus flawed, is abandoned. All criminals imprisoned under it are pardoned and released, though local police departments keep watch on many of them for years. Anderton reconciles with Lara, now pregnant with their second child, and the precogs are moved to an unnamed remote location where they can live in peace.

Tags: mystery, neo noir, murder, paranormal, violence, flashback, psychedelic, action, tragedy, suspenseful, sci-fi, home movie

Review:
Here we have one of the greatest directors alive (Steven Spielberg), a very big star (Tom Cruise) with a great ensemble (Max von Sydow, Colin Farrell, Peter Stormare, Samantha Morton, Tim Blake Nelson) around him, a good cinematography (Janusz Kaminski) and a nice score by John Williams all packed in a great story (based on the novel by Philip K.
The direction and performances are amazing - the pre-visualization on this movie must have been a nightmare and yet all the incredible special effects blend perfectly into a visual style that is completely natural and assured, as might be expected from Spielberg and Michael Kahn.
Only the one chase scene was overdone with Rambo-like mentality of the good guys not getting hit when they should, and vice- versa.The subject matter is interesting, too: what would do you (or the police) had very reliable information on crimes that were about to be committed, that you could prevent things from happening before they actually did?I recognized two people in here who went on shortly thereafter to become recognizable in TV series: Kathryn Morris ("Cold Case") and Neal McDonough ("Boomtown").
All the while, his old buddies, now helped with a special agent from the FBI (Colin Farrell), are trying to track him down.Spielberg, with Janusz Kaminski, his cinematographer for many films, have crafted a visually stunning movie.
John Anderton is similar to noir's morally ambiguous characters--a good cop with an illegal habit that is forced (by circumstances and desire) to betray the very things he loves.But this is not just a special effects or mystery movie.
These (I think) influenced Minority Report."The Maltese Falcon" ~ film noir "A Clockwork Orange" ~ science fiction "Blade Runner" ~ science fiction (also based on a Dick story)***** out of *****.
Minority Report is a shining example of that, which also has the grace of having an intelligent concept to start with, which so many sci-fi films lack much less summer sci-fi films (look at MIB2 to see what I mean), and also better than average acting.Cruise takes the lead role here as John Anderton, who leads, more or less, the agency of police that prevent all murders on the basis of predictions from three Pre-Cogs (one of them Samantha Morton who has the most important role of the three).
Dick story that came out earlier this year, is an point of that), yet Spielberg elevates a story and creates a unique atmosphere to coexist with his characters; by the time the film is HALF way through you'll be exhausted in entertainment.Bottom line, this is the type of picture to see twice, first to get the feel and presence, and the second to clear up any misunderstandings in the plot (or maybe to avoid Scooby Doo and Windtalkers), since this is indeed one of the best pictures of the year and one of Spielberg's best recent pictures.
But when Chief John Anderton, a loyal and decorated PreCrime cop, is seen to be killing someone in one of the previsions he suspects that someone set him up and that not everything is as perfect as it has been made out to be.It doesn't happen very often that a big studio production with a big name star produces such a great movie.
Spielberg and his team have crafted an engrossing vision of the future that is not only good looking with its top-notch special effects, but thought provoking and actually interesting on a pure story level.
I didn't like the voice-over at the end (we didn't need to be told that stuff; we could have worked it out), or the way he caved in to the modern tendency to be needlessly revolting (at least he don't play his gross-out moments for cheap laughs), or even the style of photography (it's easy to manipulate us into thinking the future is a grim place, if you push-process the film until even the images which in the normal course of events would be luscious and rich, are grimy and desaturated - there are other ways of getting colourless images, as Spielberg well knows, and many of them are better).
The future we see here is a MIX of dream and nightmare, so convincing a mix that we can't always tell them apart.Here's a measure of how good the movie is: in an interview, Spielberg revealed that he completely misunderstood the issues which drive the stories - and there's simply no way of telling this from the finished product.
Tom Cruise's weakness as an actor is that he is only ever as good as his director, and the fact that he's so good here means that "Minority Report" was directed by the real Spielberg, the old Spielberg, the Spielberg with the same ability Charles Dickens had to make even his most grotesque creations, and even his LEAST grotesque, come to life..
From the surface Minority Report seems to come across as a super futuristic action thriller but once you check it out you come to the realisation that nothing is what it seems as this is a story with a lot of complex human emotion rolled into it with lots of philosophical arguments on both sides which all in shows both sides of the coin and what it feels like for the hunter to become hunted.
Before they joined forces to give sci-fi fans their hugely disappointing version of War Of The Worlds, Spielberg and Cruise worked together on Minority Report, a near-future tale based on a short story by Philip K.
Star Cruise plays pre-crime cop John Anderton, who finds himself on the run after it is predicted that he himself will commit a murder.The good news is that Minority Report is a lot more enjoyable than the duo's H.G.Wells debacle, with an engrossing murder mystery plot, lots of great visuals, excellent production design, and some well executed and extremely fun action set-pieces, all of which help detract from the story's inevitable paradoxical issues and Spielberg's occasional, frustratingly unrestrained direction (Cruise leaping from car roof to car roof on a towering vertical road stretches plausibility a bit too far, but at least it's not 'nuke the fridge' bad).7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for the 'sick stick' a police baton that makes the victim projectile vomit..
This impulse serves him well when making family-oriented movies, but it has haunted him in his recent efforts to make serious adult-minded films.To the extent that "Minority Report" succeeds in engaging us, it owes a great debt to its source material.
Unfortunately, the strengths of "Minority Report" were consistently undercut by its uneven direction and the weaknesses in the script.This is what happens when a good film gets Spielberged.
John runs, escaping the pre-crime police and trying to find out how and why he was seen killing a man.This contains many levels of seeing, maybe linking up with how Speilberg sees his films  at first the visions are easily controlled but then they are fallible and more complex.
The characters are well-developed and interesting, the plot (all you should know before seeing the film is that it involves pre-crime, a crime-fighting system which allows the authorities to see murders before they occur and stop them) is well thought-out, involving, and unique, the dialogue is sharp, the world well-developed and just quirky enough to be both tremendously entertaining and believable.A film that juggles so many elements, such a complicated storyline and mythology, and so many characters as gracefully and skillfully as "Minority Report" does is rare, and it is proof of Spielberg's immense skill as director that he manages to do this, especially given how radically different not only the material but also the technical aspect of the film is to most of his earlier films.
"Minority Report" looks like nothing Spielberg's done before (except for "AI", perhaps), and it's remarkable how well-realized this future world is and how stunning the visuals are.
Sure, it was kind of cool to watch, but I think this is another Spielberg film that wows us with really cool effects, what turns out to be a cheesy plot, and the usual happy-dappy American ending.
It's that Minority Report that Cruise is interested in so Samantha Morton is taken by Tom who wants very much to find out what's going so he can alter his destiny if possible.I won't say more other than destinies can be altered and images can be manipulated and wrongly interpreted by some malevolent forces at work.Cruise and Von Sydow and the rest of the cast turn in some fine performances for Steven Spielberg.
Minority Report is the latest film from Stephen Spielberg that stars Tom Cruise as a cop from the year 2054, who works in the pre-crime division of the Washington D.C police department.
(Sounds like a visit to amazon.com?) Spielberg lightens up the tone with his signature wit and humorous quips and visuals now and then, as opposed to Ridley Scott's more serious and consistently dark visualization portrayed in Blade Runner.As a plotline, Minority Report is intelligent, has a good consistent flow, isn't always predictable (at least not that long before it happens), has many twists and turns with legitimate dead-ends, and above all, tells a plausible story (even if the basic premise itself requires considerable suspension of disbelief).
You know all you need to know here.The best parts of the movie are so good  from the high-tech special effects to the light-hearted humorous moments to the good, steady flow of the action and plotline  that the problems with the film are easily forgiven.
Dick, Steven Spielberg had the courage to create the darkest movie of his career (so far at least), which touches important ethical dilemmas about the types of protection of the human being, beating the crime, respect for the individual freedom and the responsibilities of the citizens and the law.Pioneering and deeply prophetical representation of a dark future , with Tom Cruise in one of his darkest and most demanding interpretations of his career.I believe there are similarities with Davis' The fugitive.
It's a proposition that director Steven Spielberg addresses in `Minority Report,' a drama/thriller set in the near future, in which a kind of `HMO for Crime' has been established that does just that:  A system that unerringly predicts and prevents murder.
Even the best filmmaker, however, is not going to produce a work of genius every time out; just as within every human being there is `good' cholesterol and `bad' cholesterol, so it must be with the films of an artist of Spielberg's magnitude-- it is natural that his resume will include both.
The standout performances come from Colin Farrell, who lends some real nuance to his character and manages to make him truly three-dimensional; and from Samantha Morton, who creates the most emotionally involving character of the film with her portrayal of Agatha; and it's part of what makes `Minority Report' (like any Spielberg film-- even the `lesser' ones) worth the price of admission.
The movie describes how a vision is generated then visualized and finally how this visualization is rationalized and used: triplets mutants lying in a bathtub filed of amniotic fluid generate visions of future crimes that are visualize on a screen and organized by John Anderton (chief police Tom Cruise) in order to find clues that will help the pre-crime department to arrest the suspect/convict before the crimes are committed.
this is tom cruise at his earnest best looks amazing - particularly if you have home projector some may think too cheesy but great social commentary (presumably the remainder of dick's story) and fantastic adrenalin rushtime travel theory understory for those looking for intellectual involvementand also goes to show the danger of looking at crime judgmentally and prejudgmentallya lesson for all perhaps to avoid the slow creep of police states and moral majority persecution.
As a sci-fi action film noir story starring Tom Cruise, it's big box office and ought to do way better than `A.I.,' but it sadly does not stand out from the other summer blockbusters, some of which are definitely more fun.
The first problem with `Minority Report' from which all others flow is that this is another movie made from a story by Fifties sci-fi pulp great Philip K.
Indeed, a big budget makes a film anything but noir.Sure, there are good moments-Samantha Morton's acting in the challenging and rather thankless role of the pre-cog Agatha, Lois Smith's Kubrickesque cameo in the animated hothouse, the retinal ID spiders who invade Anderton's post-eye-op hideaway, and the whole grotty eye op episode, which blends bits of `Brazil' with bits of `Blade Runner' but adds a delicious new level of disgustingness.
When pre-cog officer John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is accused of committing a pre-crime, he must find out why he will kill a man he has never met.'Minority Report' is Spielberg's best of the 2000s.Great story and script.
What the hell were they thinking?Good: Special effects, film's look, some of the acting (not much though) Bad: Everything else.If you thought Independence Day was a great movie, then go see this.
Spielberg's Minority Report is a sprawling, maddening, grotesque spectacle; a film that darts all over the place, catering for mainstream tastes in chase and action sequences but desperately trying to provide more substantial weight and content for the rest of us in the form of typically dystopian futures full of technology and modernity run amok; all the while complimented by wondrous visuals.
Included in a number of top ten of the year lists when it was released and equally so for the decade, although mostly from American critics, mind; Minority Report's pompous and nonsensical attitude is matched only by its misjudged and somewhat misguided approach of romping through a beautifully created world, spawned entirely from computer generated imagery, as fans of either Cruise and/or Spielberg get to attend their latest flick and tick off the genre conventions under a faux banner of entertainment.The film, one of those from Spielberg that again sees him attempt to combine style with substance and filter them both through a number of genres so long as there's a glut of action in there somewhere, does not match what he achieved in the likes of Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan; films that maintained a steady sense of threat around a number of sequences that although contained a fair deal of action, saw overwhelming odds stacked against the characters we focused on as superior forces moved in for the kill.
The film's extended screen time that it gives to shots of the technology at the pre-crime lab's disposal, very early on, when all the moving around of this and that on some screens are overly emphasised – the camera lingering on Cruise use the technology for longer than it needs to.With a stuck up tone, a load of caricatures running around another world brought to life, but wasted on with a tired chase/corruption narrative as well as a distinctly misguided tone, Minority Report is a wavering mess; a truly daft experience running on empty.
Believable grief, action work as strong as ever, it is however with his ability to imbue a tortured film noir protagonist where Cruise excels the most.Alongside Cruise and operating with great impact, are Samantha Morton as Pre-Cog Agatha, and Max Von Sydow, who adds that touch of experienced know how needed for his particularly important character.
Pairing Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise must undoubtedly be a nightmare for many people, but for those in their fan clubs it had plenty of promise, and "Minority Report" is a definite return to form for the master after "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" - itself flawed but not as bad as many claim it is.Like "Total Recall," this expands on (and from what I'm told almost totally changes) the Philip K.
The film, as a whole, left me very satisfied – thanks to the accurate storytelling, engaging special effects and unique setting and vision of the not-so-far future.The story follows John Anderton (Cruise), head of Precrime, a futuristic police force whose genetically enhanced employees have the unique ability to foresee the future, therefore helping the unit's policemen to prevent crimes before they occur.
Well, it's been working for him for a long time (from "Jaws" to "Shindler's List") so I guess he'll keep doing it until people stop pulling on their own heartstrings so hard.Yes, that's this movie's excuse for a plot motivation (Dick's story had a political motive behind the murder in the majority report).
A film with a poor and predictable plot, decently acted with many ridiculous and ludricrous scenes ( example, Anderton chasing his eye balls!) It's about time Spielberg realizes he's not Stanley Kubrick and he'll never be Kubrick before he decides to direct another unwatchable film like Minority Report and A.I!
In "Minority Report," Steven Spielberg combines a very realistic vision of the future with an interesting story about the limits of social engineering.The result is another extremely well-done science fiction film, which is comparable in quality to "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind." The movie is mainly about the controversy over whether any social system can be without flaws.
"Far From Heaven" depicted the stereotypes between interracial relationships to homosexuality in the 1950's which still happens today, to "Bowling for Columbine" in which Michael Moore showed how Americans are fanatics towards having a gun; now in Steven Spielberg's latest film, he shows the more futuristic side towards people's mind: prediction.The main character in "Minority Report" is John Atherton (Tom Cruise), a futurist cop who heads Pre-Crime, an organization dealing with people's fate on whether or not they are going to commit a crime.
This sets up the film's plot which involves pre-crime cop Tom Cruise going on the run to prove his innocence when the pre-cogs name him as a future murderer.This is by far Steven Spielberg's most complex film to date.