Intermission: 'Minority Report' among Spielberg's best work

"Minority Report"

Directed By: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow, Samantha Morton

Rated: PG-13

Steven Spielberg's last project was a labor of love. He completed "A.I.," a sci-fi project in the works for decades under the eye of the late Stanley Kubrick, one of Spielberg's heroes.

It seems Spielberg got drawn into Kubrick's dark, unsettling vision of things to come and has directed a film that is reminiscent of Kubrick's futuristic morality tales such as "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "A Clockwork Orange."

Also on hand in "Minority Report" is Tom Cruise, who starred in Kubrick's final movie, "Eyes Wide Shut."

While I've always had respect for Spielberg as a craftsman, I've seldom connected with his subject matter. His films, outside of "Schindler's List," have usually left me sort of cold. At the risk of outraging fans of "Jaws," "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," I'd say that "Minority Report" probably ranks with "Schindler's List" as the best thing Spielberg has ever done.

The science fiction subject matter couldn't come from a more revered source. Philip K. Dick is the ultimate sci-fi writer/futurist of the 20th century. His stories are usually short, but many have been expanded into feature length screenplays. "Bladerunner" was based on the short story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," "Total Recall" was based on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" and "Minority Report" is based on a story first published in 1955 called "The Minority Report."

Trying to go into the plot of "Minority Report" would be an exercise in futility and would diminish the pleasure of the viewing experience, but here are some basic facts.

The year is 2054, and Cruise plays a cop named John Anderton. He works for a division of the Washington, D.C., police called the Department of Pre-Crime. It's an experimental unit, less than 10 years old, and utilizes the powers of three people known as "pre-cogs" (as in precognition) who seem to be slaves of the state. These pre-cogs are wired into an elaborate computer system that can monitor and record their premonitions. Murder, it seems, is the most jarring of all human thoughts and the pre-cogs can get a mental image before sometimes well before, other times with just minutes to spare of murders that are about to happen. The Pre-Crime folks then go into action and stop the killing before it takes place. The perpetrator-to-be is hauled off to jail. Since the implementation of this program, the murder rate in D.C. dropped to nearly zero.

A debate is raging about whether this pre-crime thing is a violation of basic human rights. On one hand there's an election coming up to set up a "National Pre-Crime" unit; on the other, a movement that thinks the whole thing is subject to the usual human flaws and should be put to rest.

Anderton's boss, played by Max von Sydow, is at the center of the crossfire and as one of the inventors of the concept of pre-crime, he's concerned about the future of its usage.

The big glitch comes when Anderton is targeted as someone who is about to commit a murder. He sees the pre-cog recording and is entirely shaken. He doesn't know his intended victim and is not really the kind of guy to commit murder, but it's all there on pre-cog computer recordings. Something foul is afoot and Anderton does what any innocent man trapped in circumstances beyond his control would do: he runs.

The film is really an amazing piece of work. Spielberg uses state-of-the-art special effects, but does so like all directors who know the story is the most important thing in a fashion that doesn't lead the viewer into thinking "Wow, that was a cool special effect." This is from the guy who directed "Jurassic Park," a film that can only be summed up by saying, "Plot? Who cares? Those dinosaurs looked real."

Besides the great science-fiction plot and dazzling visuals, "Minority Report" has some timely political/philosophical overtones as well. In an age when we're hearing about the formation of a Department of Homeland Security, entertaining the notion of amassing troops at our borders to "keep out terrorists," and average citizens are willing to give up the basic constitutional rights of privacy and search-and-seizure, the "Pre-Crime Department" notion doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Spielberg continues to surprise with his films. In "Minority Report," he's starting with great material from the unique and forward-looking mind of Dick. With the help of screenwriters Scott Frank and Jon Cohen, he's given us a movie that works perfectly on a lot of different levels.

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)