CYPHER - DVD review

The 2002 sci-fi thriller "Cypher" is another of those movies Miramax helped produce but never distributed in the United States. While it played at any number of film festivals around the world and opened in a few limited markets in some countries, it has its American première with this DVD. It's no wonder Miramax has had its share of legal problems and criticisms over the years, culminating in its founders, the Weinstein brothers, giving it up to the Disney corporation in 2005. I'm sure we all appreciate the idea of having a big, semi-independent movie producer like Miramax to buck the usual Hollywood trends, but when the company debuts as many of its features directly to video as Miramax has, you know something is amiss.

Be that as it may, what we have in "Cypher" is a decently made, well-acted, and semi-intelligent science-fiction yarn that maybe wouldn't have scored a big hit in American movie theaters but could have won over a niche audience. Heavens knows we have had to endure a ton of worse rubbish.

The movie was directed by Vincenzo Natali, who made a similar small-budget sci-fi film about five years earlier called "Cube." Not unexpectedly, both "Cube" and "Cypher" enjoy some of the same strengths and weaknesses. Both movies are based on thoughtful premises, which unfortunately don't go very far and disintegrate by the end, and both movies look a lot bigger and a lot more expensive than they really are. Of the two, however, "Cypher" may hold the greater appeal for a mass audience, thanks to its charismatic star, Jeremy Northam, and its more obvious, if somewhat dubious, thrills.

I won't go into too much detail about the movie's plot because the less you know about it, the more fun it will be to watch. OK, let me say a few things about it, anyway, like it involves a common, everyday man, Morgan Sullivan (Northam), who goes to work as a corporate spy for a Silicon Valley technology firm called DigiCorp. Sullivan is a mousy, nerdy type guy who dreams of a more exciting life than the one he lives with his domineering lawyer wife in his suburban San Jose, CA, tract house. Being in corporate espionage may not be the same thing as being a government superspy, but Sullivan figures it's a way out of his humdrum existence.

Little does Sullivan know.

DigiCorp gives him a new name, a new identity as "Jack Thursby," and tell him he can fashion himself into anyone he wants. His choice of a new lifestyle appears to be patterned after 007, as he takes to drinking Scotch, smoking fancy imported cigarettes, and flying around the country secretly tape recording keynote speakers at the competition's conventions. But in becoming a new person, he also becomes a cypher, a nobody in reality, a nonentity. Moreover, a cypher also refers to a code, so from the outset of the movie we can expect a puzzle to unfold.

And a puzzle does unfold. No sooner does Sullivan reach his first assignment than he meets a mysterious, sultry, sexy female, Rita Foster (Lucy Liu), and all of his Walter Mitty dreams begin to come true. Until things start to go wrong. Very, very wrong. He begins getting headaches and having nightmares. Then, before long he's up to his ears in guns, drugs, spies, moles, counterspies, treachery, mass brainwashings, you name it.

Twists and turns are the order of the day as the film, which starts slowly, picks up speed and moves forward at an almost dizzying pace. Regrettably, neither the twists and turns nor the increased tempo improve on what starts out as a promising parable on the perils of conformity and loss of identity in a computerized, technological world. Instead, "Cypher" shifts away from its initial theme and by the halfway point turns into a standard spy-vs.-spy adventure yarn, with the action becoming sillier, more exaggerated, as the story goes on, culminating in a climax that is simply preposterous.

Regardless, there's no question the movie will have you guessing continuously, which may save the day. Interestingly, about three-quarters of the way through I found myself saying almost out loud, "Oh, my gosh! I know what's going to happen next I know how it's going to end!" And I was right. It was an epiphany, a moment of revelation worthy of an M. Night Shyamalan flick, but it happened well before I was supposed to know. Watching the rest of the movie play out as I had imagined it would was a kick, but that was about the only fun I had in the second half amid the omnipresent explosions and gun play.

The highlights of the film do not necessarily include the script, unless you simply like puzzles, but the direction, which is often imaginative and inventive, given the movie's budget, and the acting of Jeremy Northam. The actor is much underrated in my opinion. He's played everything from an uptight barrister to a romantic twenties' crooner, and here it's fascinating to watch him play an inept geek who slowly transforms himself into a pseudo superhero, somewhat along the lines of Cary Grant's character in "North By Northwest." Frankly, Northam has long been one of my personal contenders for the Bond role, along with Clive Owen and Hugh Jackman, but what do I know.

I worried early on in "Cypher" that it was going to be one of those "it-was-all-a-dream" affairs, but I'll tell you right now it doesn't sink that low. Rather, it declines into high-tech gizmos, whizbang hardware, and hairbreadth escapes, leaving the brain behind for the sake of sheer, overinflated thrills. The movie starts out well, but in the long run its corporate espionage plot doesn't prove simply too complicated, it ends up downright muddled. And for all that, it's still kind of fun.

Video:
The video quality on this one is so-so. The director purposely chose to film the first half of the movie with a distinctly bluish-gray metallic look in order to convey the feeling of a cold, sterile, high-tech computer world. But when the colors open up in the second half, they are reasonably natural, in a subdued sort of way. A handful of moiré effects, shimmering lines, show up now and then, as does a touch of grain, but it's of little concern. Perhaps the overall soft focus will displease some videophiles, but I found it rather pleasing to the eye. The image size will nicely fill up a widescreen television, measuring out at an anamorphic ratio of about 1.76:1.

Audio:
Although you'll get a good stereo spread in the front speakers and a few nice surround sounds in the rear the rear from the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio reproduction, it really isn't as sharply or as clearly defined as it could be. The dynamic response shows its colors as a couple of automobiles and jet planes pass by, and the bass comes up well in the inevitable helicopter flyover. Music receives an ambient bloom from the surrounds, too, as does a variety of voices. So, it isn't the quantity of sounds emanating from the 5.1 speakers as it is the general quality of the sound, which is sometimes a tad on the fuzzy side.

Extras:
Bless Buena Vista for allowing me to get a little peace and rest by not putting any bonus items of any consequence on their disc. What we get are Sneak Peeks at four other BV titles; thirteen scene selections, plus chapter insert; English as only spoken-language option; and French and Spanish subtitles, with English captions for the hearing impaired. There; that was easy.

Parting Shots:
OK, so "Cypher" isn't the most sensible or logical action thriller around, but how many action thrillers are sensible or logical? "The Fugitive" came close, but even that movie had its moments of pure hokum. No, "Cypher" is just a good attempt at fooling around with an audience, pulling them one way and then another in a kind of carnival tilt-a-whirl ride. The movie can be fun if you don't think about it too much, and its star holds it together with his genuine sense of chameleonlike versatility. "Cypher" may not be great, but it might be better than you think.