Minority Report (2002)

In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder.

Director:

Steven Spielberg

Writers:

Philip K. Dick (short story), Scott Frank (screenplay)

Stars:

Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 20 wins & 90 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tom Cruise	...	Chief John Anderton
Max von Sydow	...	Director Lamar Burgess
Steve Harris	...	Jad
Neal McDonough	...	Fletcher
Patrick Kilpatrick	...	Knott
Jessica Capshaw	...	Evanna
Richard Coca	...	Pre-Crime Cop
Keith Campbell	...	Pre-Crime Cop
Kirk B.R. Woller	...	Pre-Crime Cop
Klea Scott	...	Pre-Crime Cop
Frank Grillo	...	Pre-Crime Cop
Anna Maria Horsford	...	Casey
Sarah Simmons	...	Lamar Burgess' Secretary
Eugene Osment	...	Jad's Technician
James Henderson	...	Office Worker

Storyline

In the year 2054 A.D. crime is virtually eliminated from Washington D.C. thanks to an elite law enforcing squad "Precrime". They use three gifted humans (called "Pre-Cogs") with special powers to see into the future and predict crimes beforehand. John Anderton heads Precrime and believes the system's flawlessness steadfastly. However one day the Pre-Cogs predict that Anderton will commit a murder himself in the next 36 hours. Worse, Anderton doesn't even know the victim. He decides to get to the mystery's core by finding out the 'minority report' which means the prediction of the female Pre-Cog Agatha that "might" tell a different story and prove Anderton innocent.

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Plot Keywords:

year 2054 | future noir | neo noir | washington d.c. | psychic | 

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Taglines:

What would you do if you were accused of a murder, you had not committed... yet?

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content

Did You Know?

Trivia

In an interview Steven Spielberg admitted that jetpacks are not likely to ever come to fruition, but he included the technology as a tribute to the science fiction that he grew up with.

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Goofs

While Anderton is jogging through the street, an ad for PreCrime is playing, during which a future-victim states "he was going to rape me." However, later when Witwer is asking the PreCrime crew questions they discuss how the Precogs cannot see rape because of "the nature of murder". If the attacker were only going to rape her, the Precogs would not have predicted it, but if the attacker had planned to kill her after the rape, the rape would most likely have been seen as part of the Precogs' vision.

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Quotes

Agatha: [to John Anderton] You still have a choice.

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Crazy Credits

The distributor and production company credits look like they are underwater, which ties into the opening shot of Agatha in the tank.

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Alternate Versions

Spencer Treat Clark was credited as "Sean at Nine" in release prints of the film, because he appeared in a scene that was deleted so close to the film's release that the credits had already been finalized and couldn't be changed. Clark played a grown-up version of Anderton's young son Sean, in a fantasy dream scene that took place after Anderton has been put in containment toward the end of the film. The entire scene was removed from the film just before release.

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Connections

Featured in Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013)

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Soundtracks

The Ad-Mall
Written, Produced and Performed by Paul Haslinger

User Reviews

Dark, complex and interesting

In the year 2054 the murder rate in Washington is zero because of the Pre-Crime division. Pre-Crime uses three pre-cognitives to see the near future and direct officers to arrest the murderers before they can commit the act. However during a visit by an assessing authority the pre-cognitives see chief officer John Anderton kill a man. John runs, escaping the pre-crime police and trying to find out how and why he was seen killing a man.

This contains many levels of seeing, maybe linking up with how Speilberg sees his films – at first the visions are easily controlled but then they are fallible and more complex. Anderton even changes his eyes at one point to show how his vision is changed. Aside from these metaphors the film itself is a lot more complex than Speilberg would have done several years ago. The film deals with a complex future where we are pre-judged by a big brother style police and the film does have an element of the moral questioning that this throws up. However for the majority it is a complex mystery film and this carries it no problem right up till the end.

The end (I'm not spoiling it) is where it trips up a little – the conclusion is a little too easy and the ends are too tidily tied up, showing that Speilberg perhaps isn't yet the mature director he almost is. His vision however is very good, yes, we have all the CGI we need and only occasionally does it not look good. However more than all the CGI, Speilberg mixes the present with his futuristic vision rather than having us all living in pods!

Cruise has become more mature as well. His Anderton starts out as an Ethan Hawk character – full of confidence, but later he is able to add more layers and more doubt. He is also able to act well beside some other strong performances from good actors like Max Von Sydow and a strong Colin Farrell. The rest of the cast has some famous faces like Ayre Gross, Sam Morton, Tim Blake Nelson, Stormare etc but outside of them really it's Cruise all the way.

Overall it may disappoint the Jurassic Park/Matrix audience expecting a fast, action packed thriller – the marketing makes it look like the Matrix when really it's much more like the noir of Bladerunner. The moral complexities run nicely alongside the action but eventually it falls into Speilberg sentiment mode with a disappointing end. Overall though this is very good but not quite Bladerunner.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English Swedish

Release Date:

21 June 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

Total Recall 2

Filming Locations:

Butter Island, Penobscot Bay, Maine, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$102,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$35,677,125, 23 June 2002

Gross USA:

$132,072,926

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$358,372,926

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, DreamWorks, Cruise/Wagner Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

145 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby DTS SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1