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Final Cut, The

Final Cut, The (2004) Movie Poster
  •  USA / Canada / Germany  •    •  95m  •    •  Directed by: Omar Naim.  •  Starring: Robin Williams, Mira Sorvino, Jim Caviezel, Mimi Kuzyk, Stephanie Romanov, Thom Bishops, Genevieve Buechner, Brendan Fletcher, Vincent Gale, Casey Dubois, Liam Ranger, Joely Collins, Michael St. John Smith.  •  Music by: Brian Tyler.
        In a near undefined future, people may have a Zoe microchip implanted in their nervous system to permit their families retrieve the best moments of their memories and watch on video after their deaths. This process is called "Rememory" and Alan H. Hakman, a man traumatized by an incident in his childhood, is the best cutter of the Eye Tech Corporation. The company is facing groups that oppose to the "Rememory" and the ex-cutter Fletcher is leading these opponents. When Alan is assigned to prepare the final cut of the memories of the Eye Tech lawyer Charles Bannister, his Zoe chip is disputed by Fletcher. Meanwhile, Alan finds that he has also an implanted microchip, which is against the rules of a cutter.

Trailers:

   Length:  Languages:  Subtitles:
 1:44
 
 
 0:48
 
 
 2:16
 2:04
 
 
 1:56
 
 

Review:

Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Image from: Final Cut, The (2004)
Rarely do I come across a movie that holds together as loosely as this. Where to start? (Warning, mayor spoilers ahead, don't read this if you plan to watch the movie)

First of all there is the premise: To be able to record memories of people so their lives can be stored after their deaths. This is what justifies the practice of these so called cutters, and the counter-argument that is voices that this is an invasion of privacy, and that God alone is to see through the eyes of others. Well, in fact there is more to it. In any ethical society, these devices can never be implemented without consent of the carrier. The invasion of privacy is reason enough for this. We all have our secrets we don't need anyone to see, especially after our deaths when we aren't around to defend ourselves against misinterpretation. Would in fact such technology ever be deviced and implemented, there would have to be an exit option: an option to have these devices removed. Instead, in the movie it requires electromagnetic tattoos to disable these devices from further recording.

This alone makes no sense. There being no agreement of consent of the carrier to be signed, nor active tracking of carriers to make sure they are informed of their implant and sign an agreement after all (which would have made the main characters situation quite the different one) makes absolutely no sense if this technology were developed in a society of western ethics (not saying other world ethics wouldn't dictate the same, but this movie is all about the typical ethical dilemma's of the direction the western world is taking). Yet, the plot revolves around exposing a scandal which should change the way we'd view such technology, namely that the man behind the corporation owning the technology abused his daughter...??? How cheap is that? Why not stick to the moral dilemma of the technology itself, which would be way more interesting to explore. No, instead they go for old fashion discredit to something that should incite moral outrage. That people are to be killed to get the evidence for this seems no obstacle. I could go on about this 'ethical' foundation, but let's get to the next part.

Which is the technology. Here you have recordings of half a million hours, and they are edited by single individuals, with occasionally an assistant? Even if we cut out 60% in sleeping hours and boredom, they still have to go trough over 200.000 hours on their own? Impossible. Tasks like this you'd need huge teams for, judging material on relevance, doing research, editing the thing together. Plus of course you'd need boards of privacy protection and whathaveyounot regulating information and clearance, a vast system of security realising these regulations, etc. The idea that a single person is doing this at home is absurd.

And that makes one of the crucial points in the plot totally uncalled for, which is where the girl takes a shot at the cutting system, destroying the memory implant which the hoodlums are after, and which will eventually get the main character killed. See, it's already unimaginable that Alan (Robin) would be doing this job at home, but even if we accept this under the notion that we do a lot of work at home too these days on our company laptops: We have passwords on our laptops!! Here you have a computer system with the most sensitive information possible, and there is not a single password needed to activate it? No key or pass that needs to be inserted? No single way of keeping out those without clearance?? How extremely unlikely once again.. Companies protect information far less sensitive than this. Of course, would this device had been protected, the girlfriend wouldn't have been able to view her ex-boyfriends memory-card (what was it doing there anyway? Wasn't that guy dead already? Didn't the company have a storage room -lacking digital indexing btw- where they keep these cards in cardboard boxes so that they'd be exposed to the detrimental effects of the atmosphere?)

Another minor technical detail is the reading of memory of living people; "it can't be recorded"... yet it can be viewed on a monitor... meaning there is a feed, and any feed can be recorded.. what are we moviegoers taken for, total retards? For a movie pretending to have this intellectual dilemma theme about it, I find stuff like this quite the insult to our intelligence..

All of this makes the whole movie feel like a cheap setup, which it is for otherwise the plot couldn't have taken the turns it took, and which totally destroys any credibility.

The music was OK. The acting was mediocre. I liked the detail of Alan leaving the door open on purpose when interviewing the young girl, the face tattoo's those anti-folks walked around with looked OK, and the way the movie was shot wasn't half bad either. But that's not enough. A movie like this needs a foundation that actually compels the mind, and they should have worked with the ethical dilemmas the premise brought forth, not turn it into the cheap generic thriller it actually became..


Review by stuffkikker from the Internet Movie Database.