Enigma
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Movie Reviews of Enigma
Movie Review: Enigma- Great Movie, Great Acting!
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this movie in the theater first and loved it and had to buy it on DVD. It is such a good story and the actors are great. Especially Dougray Scott, Jeremy Northam, and Kate Winslet!!Movie Review: There is more than one mystery to solve in this WWII film
Summary: 4 Stars
If you remember the film "U-571," the Hollywood version of how the Allies got a hold of the Enigma decryption device (with Americans replacing the British), then "Enigma" continues the story in terms of how code breaking was a key part of the Allied War effort. The setting is Bletchley Park, which was the center for England's decoding operation. Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott), a mathematician who has something of a dangerous mind, has been brought back for a big project. Apparently he was the star of the show until he suffered a nervous breakdown until something happened between him and his girlfriend, Claire Romilly (Saffrom Burrows). No one is quite sure about him, but the Germans have changed their encryption methods just as the first of several large convoys are heading across the Atlantic. The British need to know where the German U-boats are or the war could be lost.
"Enigma" is basically two movies. One is about the effort to crack the new German code, trying to catch a break that can make all the difference, and having to face the prospect of sacrificing ships, cargo, and men to get that break. The other is more of a traditional thriller as Tom tries to find out what has happened to Claire, who has disappeared. He is aided and abetted by Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), who is underemployed in the war effort as a clerk. But as he investigates Claire's disappearance he keeps encountering Wigram (Jeremy Northam), who appears to be some sort of security agent. The problem is you can never be sure if anybody is whom they appear to be in this film. You know there is a traitor running around here and even Tom, because of his mental problems, is a suspect.
Ultimately it is the second plotline that overwhelms the first, and if you are looking for insights into how these geniuses did their work you will get little along those lines. You are also going to be rather surprised at what the big clue ends up being and the abrupt turn in the plot that results from that twist. On the one hand you certainly never see it coming, but on the other how it fits into the complex story is less than satisfying. Fortunately there are the two decidedly different mysteries going to keep our attention as well as the performances by Scott and Winslet, who keep their respectively unstable and frumpy characters from becoming caricatures.
"Enigma" also seems to be two films in terms of the pacing. The first three-quarters of director Michael Apted's two-hour film is a bit slow and then we end up racing through the big develops at the end. It is not often where you feel that a film is dragging and then suddenly find it rushing by like this one does in the end. When you have a script by Tom Stoppard ("Shakespeare in Love"), based on the novel by Robert Harris ("Fatherland"), cinematography by Seamus McGarvey ("The Hours"), and a score by John Barry ("The Lion in Winter," "Out of Africa," "Dances With Wolves) and there are problems with the movie you have to look at who was making the decisions on things like editing. Consequently, this 2001 film will probably be of more interest to students of intelligence work in World War II more than to fans of the thriller genre.
Movie Review: I have very mixed reactions to this one
Summary: 4 Stars
There were some things I liked about this film and several things that I didn't like at all. Primarily, I was profoundly disappointed with the script. The problem is this: the story of Enigma and the breaking of the code is such a fascinating story in itself that having it serve as the background of a mystery/espionage story just needlessly complicates things. It reminds me too much of those strange detective novels that couples famous real life individuals with fictional ones, like THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION teaming Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud. To top things off, I found the plot to be either far too complicated (and this from someone who had no trouble following the plot of THE BIG SLEEP) or muddled in the telling. So it wasn't merely a needless plot but also a badly told one.The greatest outrage was, of course, basing a character on Alan Turing. The problem is that they used a pick-and-choose method. The retained the overall physical resemblance to Turing and his emotional instability. But they jettisoned his famous quirkiness and notoriously difficult personality for a much milder demeanor. Of course, the most offensive change is making Tom Jericho heterosexual, while Turing was very definitely homosexual. This is not a minor quibble, because Turing's homosexuality was, apart from his genius, the central fact of his life. He was persecuted by the police because of it, and during WW II was under heavy security surveillance because his sexual orientation supposedly made him a security risk. Because Jericho-Turing is the central character in the film, this schizophrenic rendering will create enormous discomfort for anyone with much familiarity with either Turing or the Enigma project.
On the positive side, the cast was exceptionally strong, even in instances where they played unpleasant characters. Jeremy Northam plays a well conceived if unpleasant character, but the problem with that is that he is . . . well, unpleasant. Dougray Scott was good as Jericho/Turing, though I got tired of his bags-under-the-eyes appearance. Kate Winslet was fetching with her pretty-girl-with-glasses character.
The best thing about the film, for my taste, was the great period look and feel. Throughout, the film looked and felt like wartime England. And for anyone interested in Enigma, it was just a great rush to see a replica of a Turing machine in action (or at least the little wheels turned back and forth). Seeing an actual Enigma machine (which I read is owned by Mick Jagger, who lent it to the filmmakers for use in the film) was a real charge.
To be honest, four stars is a bit flattering to the film. Probably a solid three, but I give it an extra for letting me see someone manipulate an Enigma.
Movie Review: Good, but beware of little tweaking of truth
Summary: 4 Stars
It is a provocative, intelligent, and well-done movie, however not strictly based on facts. In short, it's not a masterpiece, but I would still recommend this film to people interested in the history of the Second World War. However, it must be taken with a pinch of salt. The main plot of the movie is not correct. The movie unfolds around an inaccurate premise that the Germans used the Enigma machine to cipher messages related to massacre of Polish officers. It is obvious why the authors did it - it was a device to link Polish motif with the cracking of the Enigma code. It is the fact, the Poles were very helpful to the British intelligence in cracking the German Enigma code. They actually delivered the top secret German Enigma machine to the hands of the head of British intelligence, who personally met Polish courier at the London's Victoria station. It is true; the cracking the Enigma code was crucial for protecting the US-British Atlantic convoys against German U-boats. However, the movie does not do the Poles any service by portraying the Polish code-breaker as a traitor who was willing to sell the Germans top British secrets just to harm the Soviets (as a pay back for the massacre of the Polish officers). It is not clear why would he favor Germans over Russians. After all, it was the Germans who were currently clearing off the Polish lands for the German settlers following the Nazi policy of expanding 'Lebensraum' at the expense of (using their terminology) 'Slavic vermin'. On the other hand, why the Germans would be so stupid as to cipher the massages, which potentially would be so damaging for the alliance of their enemies? The reality is, the Germans openly radio broadcasted in April 1943 the facts about what they found in Katyn forest, hoping to damage Soviet-Polish and Soviet-British alliance. The fact is, they did just that, although more in the long run. In the sort run, only few people even in AK (Polish Army) leadership circle in London were willing to believe the information transmitted by the Germans. Even those few who did, the British were extremely annoyed with. But in the long run, this crime of Stalin and Beria's NKVD committed in Byelorussian (not Ukrainian, as in the movie) forest would cloud the Russian-Polish relations for many years to come. The movie is incorrect, but raises questions worth asking...Movie Review: SUSPENSEFUL TREATMENT CARRIES IT ABOVE ARTISTIC LICENSES..
Summary: 4 Stars
The theme is intriguing enough to make you want to watch the movie pronto -- the (supposedly British) breaking of the Nazi secret code in WWII at Bletchley Park, the busy estate of British decrypters. Ok, so it is known that the people responsible for cracking Enigma's code were actually a group of Polish mathematicians, who made a replica in 1933 and presented France/England with cracked Enigma specimens in 1939, which helped the allies to know the orders and plans of Third Reich. So what. To the many crypto-aficianodos-turned-reviewers who seem to decry the artistic license in the movie -- well this is not Discovery channel is it. If you're looking for a history lesson read a book (e.g., "Between Silk And Cyanide") or google for Bletchely. If you want an entertaining visual narrative about it, watch this movie.
It is not easy to create an entertaining film about a subject that is for the most part mind-boggling -- cryptography. "Enigma" does a gripping and (mostly) credible job of capturing the nib of wartime espionage over 60 years ago. The drama, resplendent with it's cast of British idiosynchrasies (within which Dougray Scott provides a surprisingly underplayed and likeable genius), is both thrilling and of historical interest. The dialogue is snappy and interesting. But true to any 21st century spy movie, romance is thrown in for good measure as well and this is where Winslett makes herself useful.
The ultimate denouement with a couple of weedy subplots may be a little uninvolving but that doesn't detract Enigma from being an intriguing thriller overall. Highly recommended if you aren't expecting a super fast "Lola Rentt" pace.