The Final Cut (2004) Review

Set in a future world where memory implants are put into your baby before it is born so each and every second of a person’s life can be recorded. Leading to a tribute being played at a persons funeral. Alan Hakman is a cutter, a person who edits over a person’s life when they die.

I had never even heard of this film before but when I saw Robin Williams was in it and the story line I thought it sounded really interesting. It certainly was a very interesting concept that makes you think, would you be more careful in life in what you do and say if you knew someone was going to watch it all after you died?

We quickly find out that Alan is regarded as the best cutter around and pretty much everyone wants to use him. It all takes a turn for the worse when he is chosen to look into Bannister’s life and some of the viewing is not pleasant at all. This was all after a legal battle for the chip. This leads to an organisation trying to get this chip or at least information from Alan.

Alan is haunted by a childhood memory and cannot forgive himself for it, this is something we see quite a few times as he is wondering what ever happened to the friend he thought had died. It’s a very good way to show that your mind can change a memory into what you think happened rather than what actually happened.

The film does have a few little twists as it goes on and I really do think the concept is an interesting idea and that it had a good pace to it all. It did seem to lack something but that is not really a big deal. It isn’t too long that became a big problem or anything.

Robin Williams took on quite a few more serious roles around this time period and this is a pretty different type of character again for the very versatile actor (I think that gets overlooked at times). Jim Caviezel didn’t have the biggest role as Fletcher but was very effective when he did appear.

A lot of the film is Alan watching someone else’s movements through a computer screen, it is pretty much like being in someone else’s head. It also shows him cutting away a persons worst moments and how easy it is to make someone appear as a different person. That I found to be the most interesting part, you can see someone in a different way just by knowing a couple of things about them.

The film takes on a different idea of how technology could be used to help capture everyone’s movements, I guess this is something that can pretty much be done through a smart phone now. Let’s face it the phone tracks your movements throughout the days and weeks, I do believe my iPhone tells me how long it would take to drive to the places I go to each day . . . A little bit freaky perhaps?