Enigma

This is a rare pleasure of a film - one that is prepared to treat its viewers intelligently and tell a war-time story without explosives and histrionics and without falsifying history to glorify the Americans. It is based on the best-selling novel by Robert Harris whose previous work `Fatherland' suffered so badly when translated to the screen. Here he has a decent screenplay from Tom Stoppard, assured direction from Michael Apsted, and three fine performances by British actors.

Dougray Scott, in a very different role from his `Mission Impossible 2' outing, has lost weight to portray brilliant, but tortured, code-breaker Tom Jericho at Britain's war-time Bletchley Park; Kate Winslet put on weight (she was pregnant at the time) for a performance far removed from `Titantic' as the frumpy, but clever, Hester; and Jeremy Northam is excellent as the sardonic secret service agent Wigram who knows far more than he is prepared to reveal.

"Enigma" blends fact with fiction as it tells a carefully crafted story about the unseen and unsung heros of British WWII code-cracking who decrypted the infamous "Enigma" code which Germany used to command it's U-boat armada in the North Atlantic putting allied convoys in peril. With plenty of history and super-secret code cracking to feed the left brain and a dramatic tale of a top code-cracker and his surreptitious affairs of heart and mind for the right brain, "Enigma" has something to offer everyone. The film manages it's intricate plot well, offers solid performances, blends intrigues with lots of WWII crypto-speak, and moves along swiftly while staying real and avoiding the usual excesses of filmdom. A smart flick for smart minds. (B+)

Hello Every children in Poland knows that Enigma codes has cracked by Polish scientists from Poznan University ( M. Rejewski, J. Rozycki, H. Zygalski). This is in ours History Books in elementary school. Well... that film has falsified history... Grets

A couple of years ago PBS aired a 2-hour episode of Nova (the American equivalent of the BBC's Horizon) called 'Decoding Nazi Secrets.' It was a fascinating documentary about the work done at Bletchley Park, as well as some material about its American counterpart, Arlington Hall. I had wished it was even longer, for I suspected that what was left out was as interesting as what was included. Among the many memorable characters in the story, none stood out more than Alan Turing, a painfully shy, socially awkward, utterly brilliant genius. I found myself wishing that someone would make a theatrical film about the Enigma code and a film of Alan Turing's life, or both.

Unfortunately, this isn't it. In March of 1943, code-breakers at Bletchley Park discover to their horror that the German navy has changed the code sets used to communicate with U-boats at sea. These were based on the famous and diabolically complex encryption machine known as the Enigma. Authorities enlist the help of a brilliant young man named Tom Jericho (played by Dougray Scott) to help them break the code again. The possibility of a spy within the British code-breakers' ranks is raised, and Tom's love interest, Claire (Saffron Burrows), has disappeared. To solve these mysteries, Tom recruits Claire's best friend, Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet). While investigating Claire's personal life, the pair discovers personal and international betrayals involving the now-infamous Katyn massacre in Poland. Of course, Tom and Hester fall in love.

Dougray Scott actually does bear some physical resemblance to Alan Turing, but there the comparison ends. Turing's sorry, shabby reward for the instrumental role he played in winning the war for Britain was to be persecuted during the Cold War because his homosexuality was viewed as a security risk, to the point that he committed suicide. While 'Enigma' looks good and plays fairly well as a decent espionage film, the viewer who knows the factual background of this piece of fiction will probably be disappointed. The best part for me was the recreation of the physical setting at wartime Bletchley Park, especially the Enigma machines themselves and the famous Bombes, which were invented by Turing (Jericho in the film). These were among the world's first computing machines; they were a stroke of brilliance by Turing: Instead of looking for what a coded message WAS, they operated according to the principle of eliminating what it was NOT. This cut the number of possibilities by better than 90% and greatly simplified the work of the human code-breakers. It is somewhat surprising that this rather wan film is the work of Tom Stoppard and Michael Apted; they have done better.

You realise how little known Alan Turing was only twenty years ago when you eventually discover he's been transformed into dashing Tom Jericho romantically involved with Saffron Burrows - as Daphne to Kate Winslet's Velma - and not to take this too seriously as history.

As a slick drama with a John Barry score it's enjoyable enough, although it does rather ramble until the final plot development that serves to remind us that it's based on a novel by the same author as 'Fatherland'.