Part of Weekend Classics: Spielberg
In Washington, D.C., in the year 2054, murder has been eliminated. The future is pre-envisioned and the guilty punished before any crime has ever been committed. From a nexus deep within the Justice Department’s elite Precrime unit, all the evidence to convict is seen by “Precogs,” three psychic beings whose visions of murder have never been wrong. And no one works harder for Precrime than its top man, Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise). Devastated by a tragic personal loss, Anderton has thrown all of his passion into a system that could potentially spare thousands of people from the unspeakable tragedy he lived through. Anderton has no reason to doubt the system he’s worked so hard to uphold — until he becomes its number-one suspect. The film is based on a short story by genre favorite Philip K. Dick.
“A triumph — a film that works on our minds and our emotions. It is a thriller and a human story, a movie of ideas that’s also a whodunit. Here is a master filmmaker at the top of his form, working with a star, Tom Cruise, who generates complex human feelings even while playing an action hero.” —Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Jun 21, 2002) “Spielberg can still summon the contagious excitement of a young buck. Yet the texture of the material here could hardly be more grownup; to see a Spielberg film that starts with both sex and violence, as MINORITY REPORT does, is one of the more unexpected events in a moviegoer's life, like coming across a tea party in the middle of late Peckinpah.” —Anthony Lane, New Yorker (Jun 24, 2002) “Spielberg returns to the science-fiction genre…framing profound ethical and philosophical questions in the form of dazzling pop entertainment…. MINORITY REPORT finds Spielberg in peak form as a craftsman and an artist, boldly advancing the medium with the message.” —Scott Tobias, A.V. Club (Jun 25, 2002)
