The Final Cut (2004)

SPOILER WARNING!!! This post spoils movie The Final Cut (2004).

It is kind of sad that Robin Williams had to die before I found this movie. If he didn't die when this movie was available on streaming services, I would have missed it completely. Now it is one of my favorite movies. I don't say this because you have to say nice things about recently deceased. I say it because for a long time I saw a scifi movie where implications of future technology were carefully studied. There were many things I couldn't have thought myself, but when movie showed them to me they made perfectly sense. That is rare. There were so many subtle things I probably missed some of them. That means rewatching in future.

Usually scifi movies just try to look futuristic and add amazing action scenes. This didn't try to look futuristic. It put all the futuristic stuff into story, not to sets. Just like another scifi movie from 2004. The one that I will do next Monday.

I don't want to get too deep into story and concepts this time. I will do that when I revisit this movie in future. This is movie you have to see unspoiled. It has clever twists and I like it to make you realize how clever it is, by watching it without knowing too much about it. This would be short post if I stopped here. I try not to spoil too much.

Every twentieth person has implant which records every memory person has. Robin Williams is cutter, whose job is to create videos of deceased's memories for his or her funerals. He is the one, who does that for worst persons, whose memories other cutter don't want to touch.  He makes person look nice even if he was the worst person ever. This is current theme at the moment, when people learned about death of Robin Williams. I don't know the guy. He could be nicest person, worst person or anything in between. What I say next is not about Robin Williams but formula that follows after celebrity deaths.

When celebrity dies everybody want to tell how great the person was. He or she was always the greatest person ever lived. In Finland columnist caused controversy when she mentioned one recently died celebrity wasn't that nice person everyone made him out to be after his death. We knew his reputation, but after his death he became nicest person ever. Just like Michael Jackson. Remember Michael Jackson's reputation on last years of his life and how he became nicest person ever when he died. If these persons were nicest persons ever, why not tell that when they were alive, not after they died.

This is one theme in the movie. Should we make everyone look like nicest person ever after they die or should we tell what they really were? Robin Williams' character supports the first view. He does cutting for the living. Not the dead. He gives good memories of deceased loved ones. Maybe that is what the media does after celebrity deaths. But is it the right way. Or is it right for a one man to decide how deceased is remembered? Or who should decide how deceased is remembered? Movie brings these questions up but never gives answer to them. Movie spends more time showing implications of having people, whose every memory is recorded. Now after Snowden and European ruling of Google and right to be forgotten, this movie is more current than ever.

We are all sad that Robin Williams passed, but saddest thing about this movie is, this is only writing credit for writer and director Omar Naim. Will Omar Naim be one of those writer directors, who make one great movie and then disappear completely? Like Gerald McMorrow, who did Franlyn (2008) and then disappeared.

-------------------------------------------------------

You can also find me from Twitter and YouTube.