The Final Cut (2004)

"Way to have a respectable high paying job... LOSER!"

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller (Canada, Germany)

Starring: Robin Williams (Life According To Garp; Death To Smoochy), Mira Sorvino (Summer Of Sam; The Replacement Killers)

Directed By: Omar Naim

Overview: In a world where the Zoe Implant allows you to record your life's memories, a cutter (or post-mortem memory editor) is haunted by his own memories.

Acting: Whenever I see Robin Williams in a dramatic role, I cringe at the possibility that it'll be another What Dreams May Come, knowing that I would be satisfied with One-Hour Photo, and hoping it'll be more Life According to Garp. We all know how great an actor he is. He's amazing here and the rest of the cast does a great job too... Better than One-Hour Photo. The role really let him shine. Sadly, this category takes a knock because James Caviezel's obviously fake hair and beard was so distracting as made me pine on the reason why it looked so bad, and he, himself, seemed fake as an outcome.
Rating: 8

Cinematography: The look of the world and the subtle special effects were very professional. It seemed like the film was ultra crisp and super clean, which added to a symbolic purity of the present reality rather than the past edited by a stranger. Either way, no issue here, no sir.
Rating: 9

Script: The writing didn't stand out as being particularly good or bad, except that scene where our hero, the cutter, goes and gets a gun from a thug, intimidating him with the words of his past deeds. The motives of the characters however were all very honest and the humanity of them all was very well portrayed overall.
Rating: 8

Plot: The movie looks good and sounds good, but the sub-plot of the cutter's own dilemma and haunting memories really seemed out of place, like they had to make up a story for him, which they really did not have to do, given the external plot of the story, in which the cutter is doing the re-memory editing of the life of the Zoe Implant CEO. His unedited memories are sought after for scandal by a rival cutter. Good plot but messy compartmentalization.
Rating: 6

Mood: The world they create makes us ask, "Is this today with a twist, or is this actually the future?" because the past looks like the fifties, and the future does look pretty advanced, but not too much. The world is completely immersive and the natural backlash of the invention that changed the way we look at life is truly impressive, a nice fleshing out of the universal principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I've seen films that have a futuristic premise but in the end don't seem to really mesh with humanity. Well this is not that, my friend.
Rating: 9

"Hmmm, this masturbation scene is really artistic...maaaaybee..."

Overall Rating: 80% (Don't Cut This Out of Your Repertoire)

Aftertaste: Why the hell did I not hear of this?! It has the same feel (and is completely as underrated) as Minority Report. The world is one that you can see yourself existing in, just like Philip K. Dick pulls off. Though the world itself is less bleak, the tale itself is dark.

And we all know how much I like the dark. Highly recommended.