The Final Cut
by Omar Naim
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Actor: Jim Caviezel, Mimi Kuzyk, Mira Sorvino, Robin Williams, Stephanie RomanovDirector: Omar Naim
Brand: WILLIAMS,ROBIN
Writer: Omar Naim
Producer: Eberhard Kayser
Producer: Guymon Casady
Producer: Marc Butan
Producer: Marco Mehlitz
Producer: Michael Burns
Producer: Michael Ohoven
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-22
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of The Final Cut
DVD Review: The flawed but fascinating idea of rememories
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Final Cut" takes place in a futuristic world in which the EYE (Everything You Experience) Corporation is able to put a Zoe implant in a person's brain, usually before they are born. That implant will record everything they see and hear throughout their entire life and when they die it will be removed, the lifetime of memories downloaded, and an editor, known as a "Cutter," puts together a film of "rememeories" to be show to family and friends at a service for the dearly departed. The Cutter, one character observes, is like a magician, priest and taxidermist all rolled into one, and in this 2004 film we meet the best Cutter of them all.
But when we first meet Alan W. Hakman he is a young boy (Casey Dubois) whose has a misadventure with another young boy (Liam Ranger). The incident is the most important in Alan's life and makes him the man he becomes. The adult Alan (Robin Williams) is the most gifted of the Cutters, willing to look at the dark side of lives where others refuse. A wealthy widow (Stephanie Romanov) hires Hakman to create a Rememory of her husband, who was a rich and famous man but not a good man. She trusts Hakman to delete the unsavory parts of his life. Alan has no qualms about this, because his service is not for the dead but for the living and his goal is to allow people to remember the deceased the way they want to remember them (even if a boat turns out to be red instead of green). Alan's work is his life, and his attempts to connect with Delila (Mira Sorvino) are clumsy and rather unmotivated.
But there are those who oppose the Zoe implants, who demand that people remember for themselves and special tattoos their faces so that the implants will not work. Their leader, Fletcher (James Caviezel), is a former Cutter who wants to buy the dead man's memories to expose the truth and make the world a better place. Hakman refuses, but then something happens that gives him a personal interest in those memories and shakes him out of the lethargy that is his life. For the first time in a long time Alan cares desperately about himself more than those for whom he performs his service.
It takes a while for all of the pieces to fall together in this film and that becomes problematic because my mind kept drifting to the whole concept of the Zoe implants. The selling point is that you memories will be shared with your loved ones, but would we really want that? You have to trust a stranger not to show your loved ones the things you do not want them to see and if it was a question of sharing memories the person I want to share them with would be myself. Then there are the legal issues involved with regards to privacy, but in a world where one person in twenty has a Zoe implant would you not want access to what witnesses see at crimes and accidents? There are so many questions raised by the idea of such a technology, but "The Final Cut" does not have time to deal with them.
However, the film does raise what is probably the key issue, which has to do with how would people act if they knew they were being recorded? Is there some perverse thrill in getting away with things when you know for a fact the crime is being "watched"? It is never mentioned, but surely the Heisenberg principle is coming into play here, which would have profound philosophical questions worth debating. But writer-director Omar Naim gives away a bit of the game when the prologue ends and we are treated to three key elements of the code of the Cutters, because this means we should expect to see these rules broken during the course of the film. Consequently, the idea of the Zoe implants is both the promise and the failure of "The Final Cut," because as we struggle to understand the rules and their implications, the narrative insists on breaking them for the sake of drama.
The final shot of the film is a cheat and the people who put together "The Final Cut" admit as much in one of the special features. But then another key sequence in the film is also revealed to be a cheat and so it becomes clear that Naim has not worked out all of the bugs in his story. That does not stop it from being a fascinating premise to explore and the inconsistencies and logical holes are never so maddening that you are unwilling to play along to the resolution of the story. "The Final Cut" is also helped by William's performance, which reaches a new level of morose introspection beyond what he showed in "One Hour Photo" and "Insomnia," and which helps to forgive the film's flaws.
Description of The Final Cut
In a future world where humans are implanted with chips that record their every memory, Alan Hackman, a cutter whose job it is to remove the chips and edit them postmortem for commemorative ceremonies, is troubled by information he learns while cutting thGenre: Science Fiction
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 9-JAN-2007
Media Type: DVD
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