ENIGMA (2001) *** Codebreakers desperately working against the clock wouldn't seem a particularly intriguing premise for a film-for one thing they're supposed to understand things that no one else can, so we'd spend the entire film in confusion. Different than Buñuel, because nothing interesting would be happening (they'd all be thinking, and writing on pads of paper). Then there's the problem of how to work in a car chase. As it turns out the car chase is minimal, but a good one, and Michael Apted packs in all of the other staples as well: a ferret-eyed detective (emotively eyeballed by Jeremy Northam), a tart (Saffron Burrows), a romance, and a delightfully flawed protagonist (Dougray Scott). All of the principals are convincing, and Kate Winslet shocks no one by brilliantly portraying an oracle of a woman trapped into middle bureacracy by her schoolmarmish appearance and a stupid class system. One of those rare films with parallell storylines all working at the same time, even the code stuff is somewhat interesting. If only Mick Jagger had put this kind of passion and attention into the latter day Rolling Stones records.
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