Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg working on the same film, it sure sounds like a winner. And it might have been great if Spielberg would move beyond mainly social commentary like he has done with Artificial Intelligence, Saving Private Ryan, and Schindler’s List, thus making the film a little more fun like Jaws or the Indian Jones films.

Minority Report tells us of a cop in the PreCrime division of the DC police force. This cop is Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible 2), the top cop in this elite force that uses three “Pre-Cogs” to predict murders in the future. Pre-Cogs are people who were drug babies that somehow are in tune with the future, but can only predict murders. Anderton feels the system is flawless, until one day the Pre-Cogs say he is going to kill some guy he has never met. Through earlier scenes we have learned that Anderton and his wife Lara (Kathryn Morris, The Contender) lost their son Sean to an abduction, which has led John to take illicit drugs and it has broken up the marriage. John is now on the run from his colleagues and a federal investigator (Colin Farrell, Hart's War) looking into the whole PreCrime process as voters decide whether to make PreCrime a national system. While on the run John must discover why he is supposed to kill this guy and where can he find a minority report (a file that shows an alternate outcome of the future that does not include a murder). Along the way he is able to free lead Pre-Cog Agatha (Samantha Morton) from her strange drug induced world, get some new eyes from a guy named Jad (Steve Harris), and take us on a strange tour of the near future where privacy is at a premium.

This film is based on a short story from the deceased Philip K. Dick, who was also responsible for the writings that became movies such as Blade Runner and more recently Imposter. The screenplay is from Scott Frank. A few other cast members to mention are Max von Sydow, Neal McDonough, Richard Coca, Jessica Capshaw, Kirk B.R. Woller, Erica Ford, Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother Where Art Thou?), Daniel London, plus many more.

The social commentary is timely and very interesting, but it tends to dominate the movie. The whole question about how can we be sure that a crime will be committed without an actual crime being committed is a very interesting legal point, as is the fact that no jury is used to convict the accused. This is all well and good, but you need to make the story ‘fun’ too. Jaws is a great movie with an almost overwhelming amount of suspense to thrill the audience with, but Spielberg (Band of Brothers) also includes a subtle amount of social commentary regarding profit over saving lives. That is exactly what Minority Report needed, but did not have. Cruise is great in the film, but that only goes so far, thus I give the film six couches on the scale of ten.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:48:34 AM

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