He made a hideous alien so achingly endearing in the now-you-weep-now-you-smile ET, and gave a swashbuckling dynamism to fantasy in Indiana Jones. Now Spielberg picks up Hitchcock's most enduring theme—innocent man on the run—and spins it anew in cyberspace. This may not warm the hearts of hardcore sci-fi buffs who worship Solaris or Blade Runner, but offers a roller-coaster excitement and beguiling fantasy to the rest.
Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, the film is set in a not-so-distant America of 2054. Minority Report is all about the radical changes in crime prevention. John Anderton (Cruise) is the head detective in the Department of Precrime in the district of Columbia, which has helped bring the murder rate in Washington DC down by 90 per cent. And how? Three androidal precogs float in a pool and get visions of future crime. These images are grabbed and worked on by Anderton much like an orchestra conductor and this aids the cops in reaching the crime scene before it actually happens. While the country set to vote on whether the procedure should go national, its fallibility comes into focus when Anderton himself figures as a future murderer. Who has set him up and why? Will he become the victim of a system he has himself built?
Spielberg creates an intriguing world that's at once futuristic and accessible, it makes our collective imagination soar but is never alienating. In the US of 2054, the match-box cars hurtle on sleek freeways, cops arrive at the scene of crime in trendy airjets and use magic sticks that induce criminals to vomit. But science is yet to find a cure for common cold. The metro and its commuters haven't changed, only the newspapers they read are happily hi-tech and get updated by the second as the news breaks. The posters and counters at the talking shopping malls can identify the customers and even make shopping suggestions, but the brands on display, be it GAP, Pepsi, Lexus or Reebok, are so today. Then, only a Spielberg could have pulled off this obvious satire on the American consumer culture even while charging a hefty fee for the in-film brand promotions.
Spielberg also uses Minority Report as a vehicle to raise some valid moral and political questions: In a world where the intrusion of your privacy is standard, what happens to the civil liberties of the citizens? How can you punish a person for a crime he may have intended to commit but actually couldn't? Why shouldn't he have had the choice to opt for an alternate course? Are law-enforcing agencies then really foolproof enough to root out crime? Or, are they plain bullies? Chew on this even as you enjoy.
