The Final Cut (DVD)
Written and Directed by: Omar Naim
Starring: Robin Williams, Mira Sorvino, James Caviezel

It still surprises me that beneath the psychotic, in your face, rapid-fire comedy of Robin Williams lies a serious actor with the ability to turn in subtle performances. I was never a huge fan of his work, as the overload of manic energy often repulsed me, but I’ve since learned to appreciate his darker side in recent movies such as One Hour Photo and Insomnia. Now we can add to his filmography another nuanced role as the tortured Alan Hakman in Omar Naim’s thriller, The Final Cut.

The movie takes place in a future that is not very far off from today. A company called Eye-Tech has created the Zoe Chip, a device that can be surgically implanted into children while they are still in the womb, that will record and store every second of their lives as seen through their eyes. In essence, this implant allows the lives of its recipients to endure forever, granting their family the ability to remember everything exactly as it happened long after they have passed on. When someone dies, a special memorial ceremony known as a “Re-memory” is arranged, with an editing professional known as a “cutter” being hired to tastefully arrange the person’s lifetime of footage into a short film that can be watched and celebrated.

Alan Hakman is a cutter who often specializes in re-memories for people who have led questionable lives, glazing over the truth by removing the bad memories but leaving in the good. He is disliked by others in his profession, but he also understands what it is like to want something removed from your past. He carries around with him tremendous guilt from something that happened to him as a child. You can imagine that the a cutter’s job would really consume him, and when combined with his own secrets Hakman is forced to suppress many horrible thoughts and filter out intimate knowledge of other people’s lives on a daily basis. Occasionally Robin Williams seems to be trying too hard to be soft-spoken and despondent, but as the film progresses he once again shows an impressive ability to convey internal anguish.

It is surprising to note that The Final Cut is the first feature film for director Omar Naim, and it shows a lot of promise for his future as a filmmaker — especially considering that he wrote the script too. I am hard pressed to understand why this movie was essentially a direct to video release (it received only a very limited theatrical run in L.A. and New York). It’s not like The Final Cut is an overly challenging art house flick, and it does star Robin Williams and Mira Sorvino. To me, that warrants at least a minor theatrical release. It’s not like the movie feels like a low budget b-movie either. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto raises the production quality of this film a lot (he previously worked on such movies as The Silence of the Lambs, Gladiator and The Sixth Sense). Perhaps it is the bleak ending that decided the movie’s fate, or perhaps it is just that the movie is lacking in action and a driving plot. Ultimately the movie is more about ideas than story, though it does offer some unpredictable plot twists.

The Final Cut does not smash you over the head with its message (a nice change of pace, to be sure), but it raises a lot of interesting questions. It explores the nature of memories, both how powerful they are and how valuable they are. It also deals with issues of privacy and media intrusion. You could definitely say the film inhabits the same headspace (pun intended) as Total Recall, Minority Report and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, among others. It did seem a little short (90 minutes exactly) and maybe the movie does not live up to its full potential as a result. Still, as a fan of this kind of smart, realistic sci-fi, The Final Cut was a pleasant surprise and I enjoyed it immensely.

The DVD also comes with a reasonable amount of special features including a Making Of featurette, and shorter specialized featurettes covering production design and special effects. There is also a full length audio commentary track with writer/director Omar Naim, 3 deleted scenes (nothing really noteworthy among them) and a Storyboard to Screen comparison using Naim’s original storyboards. — Sean

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