Tom Cruise is the man. He’s got it goin’ on. For real. Whatever hip is these days, he’s it. This is not just due to his handsome face (saved from perfection by that nose that looks as if it’s been broken too many times) or his ability to pick scripts that will accent his screen presence suitably (and bring in a crapload of money in the process). Think of all the guys he’s played, all the guys who make you care about what they care about: Joel Goodson, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Charlie Babbitt, Ethan Hunt, Jerry Maguire, even bloodsucker Lestat de Lioncourt. Beyond the looks, the guy has genuine talent and immense screen likeability. Just a pretty face? Please. Imagine Keanu Reeves playing Frank T.J. Mackey in “Magnolia”. I think you get the picture. Like John Wayne, Cruise’s face has grown not just older but weightier, more mature as his star has risen over the two decades since he broke out with “Risky Business”. He’s become much easier to take seriously.

Steven Spielberg’s futuristic chase thriller “Minority Report” presents what is perhaps his best work ever. Cruise’s character in the film, John Anderton, is a walking paradox: on the job with the Washington, D.C. Police Department in the year 2054, he’s coolly efficient and professional; off duty, he’s crumbling under the weight of all the emotional baggage on his shoulders. His young son was kidnapped and murdered a few years before, and his wife has left him. He’s addicted to some sort of street drug and his apartment is a pitiful, neglected mess. His job is his life.

His job is, at least, interesting; as head of the city’s “Pre-Crime” unit, he intercepts visions from three psychics who predict murders before they actually occur. He and his team stop the perpetrator in the act and cart him off, even if the killing was prevented. In the future, it seems, the violence is incidental – the real crime is the premeditation, the intent. As Anderton says to one would-be killer near the beginning, he’s arresting him for “future murder”, not “attempted murder”.

Setting events into motion is Agatha (Samantha Morton), one of the psychics, who sees a murder that will be committed within 36 hours by none other than Anderton himself, against a man he’s never met. Anderton goes on the run to solve the mystery, which is not easy since there are sensors all over the city that will scan your retinas automatically whenever you do pretty much anything (imagine a talking billboard that addresses you by name as you walk past it). The cops, at first, have a pretty straightforward time of tracking Anderton – at least until he gets creative. He gets his eyeballs replaced (don’t ask; you have to see it to believe it) and kidnaps Agatha, who may be the key to clearing his name, as well as preventing the murder.

Spielberg out-does himself here, both in terms of story and action. Yes, there is an actual story, and it moves along at lightning speed, with lots and twists and turns and unpredictable moments. On at least three occasions I thought the movie was over, then the story just moved in a different direction. The action scenes, while exciting, are still a bit muted; you know you’re not watching “Die Hard”, but you’re still totally involved and, most importantly, you’re still relating to the story and the characters. The action does go over the top once – the fistfight between Anderton and Justice Dept. flunkie Witwer (Colin Farrell) on a moving platform in a car factory? It doesn’t belong in the same movie with a scene where Anderton runs – and jumps – away from pursuing cops on jet packs, as well as a beautifully simple sequence where Anderton and Agatha hide from the law in a shopping mall.

Cruise, as I mentioned earlier, is in top form. The best performance in the movie, however, comes from Morton as Agatha. She’s mesmerizing, heartbreaking and spooky, a dozen things at once, and she handles all of Agatha’s traits with an uncanny sense of power and discipline. She steals every scene she’s in with Cruise, which is not an easy task. She does it not only by emoting, but with her entire physical being. Agatha has been in a sort of liquid stasis, presumably for most of her life. When Anderton snatches her away, he literally has to drag her along with him, due to her atrophied muscles, and Morton pulls it off expertly. If she doesn’t get an Oscar nomination next year, she will have been robbed.

The most ingenious thing Spielberg does with “Minority Report” is make you think about its core issues: is action the same as intent? Do we really have the power to change the future? If so, should we? Most importantly, how far does the government have the right to go to maintain public safety? Should Uncle Sam be monitoring us on the subway, in the grocery store, or in our own homes? That’s a question we should ponder as, in the real world, we are currently at war with people who believe that individual freedom is completely subordinate to morality and order.

To my mind, the film ends a little too conveniently, or too Spielbergishly, you might say. I won’t give anything away, because there are simply too many surprises leading up to the climax. Spielberg was much braver with the ambiguous ending of last year’s “A.I.”, although his pal Stanley Kubrick would’ve ended both movies about twenty minutes earlier than Spielberg did. In any case, Spielberg appears to be in another transitional period, similar to the one he experienced in the mid-1980s. Whereas he tried his hand at straight drama back then, here he’s going the more experimental route. “Minority Report”, in many ways, is pure Spielberg. In others, it’s challenging and dark. You can chalk this one off as one of his more successful experiments, another step in his evolution as a storyteller. He’s definitely onto something.



Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older