Cinema Tuesdays Review

Attack of the MacGuffins
By Nathan Cone

“Cypher” is not especially bad, but it is not good enough to recommend, either. The acting is decent, but the plot is full of twists for twists’ sake. It’s like a mediocre version of “The X-Files,” stretched to 90 minutes.

The film stars Jeremy Northam as nerdy Morgan Sullivan, who has just been hired by the global computer corporation Digicorp. The job is supposedly top secret, but all Sullivan seems to be doing for the company is jetting to and fro across America, recording boring speeches at conventions that have nothing to do with computers. Of course this means something is not what it seems, and we soon learn that Digicorp is brainwashing dozens of “employees” at these conventions, to make them believe they are someone else. To what end? We never learn.

Sullivan soon meets a mysterious woman (Lucy Liu) who drops hints to him about what is going on inside his mind. He is also approached by a rival company, Sunways, that asks him to spy on Digicorp. He takes the job. See, the head of Sunways wants some information out of Digicorp, and figures mild-mannered Sullivan is just the guy to get it for him.

All of this leads to an underground fortress and the revelation of Sullivan’s true identity. But again I ask, to what end? It’s never explained what Digicorp does, or why they are using such an elaborate brainwashing scheme. Nor do we ever learn what Sunways’ master plan is for the day they get their hands on the vital information they need from Digicorp.

Alfred Hitchcock made great use of this concept in his films. He called it the “MacGuffin.” The MacGuffin is a question or idea that is never answered, yet keeps the audience interested throughout the story. In “Cypher” the whole movie is comprised of MacGuffins. There are too many of them, and none are tantalizing enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

“Cypher” also seems cobbled together from other movies, everything from “The Matrix” to “A Clockwork Orange” and “The Manchurian Candidate.” According to the press notes accompanying the DVD, “Cypher” won a few awards at some obscure European film festivals. But it sat on the shelf at Miramax for two years before making its DVD debut this summer. A longer shelf life doesn’t always equal a stinker. Look at “Finding Neverland,” which sat on the shelf for two years before its release and subsequent Academy Award nominations. But “Cypher” on DVD isn’t worth a purchase especially with no extra features. It might be okay for a mildly entertaining rental, but you may wonder where those 96 minutes went when the film is over. Maybe you were brainwashed.

8/11/05

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