The Final Cut (2004)

• Year: 2004
• Released: 15 Oct 2004
• Country: United States, Canada, Germany
• Adwords: 1 win & 4 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_final_cut
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-final-cut
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: PG-13
• Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
• Runtime: 95 min
• Writer: Omar Naim
• Director: Omar Naim
• Cast: Robin Williams, Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino
• Keywords: dying and death, boss, microchip, filmteam,

	6.1/10
	43/100
	37% – Critics
	45% – Audience

The Final Cut Storyline

It’s sometime in the near future. Largely on affordability, one in twenty people have Zoe implants inserted at birth, they manufactured by EYE Tech. The implants record what the host sees over his entire life. It is the job of a cutter to edit the footage post-mortem into a rememory for loved ones, it the official record of only the good, editing out for posterity the bad, the ugly and especially the very ugly. Ethically, cutters cannot combine footage from more than one implant for a rememory, cannot sell footage, and cannot have an implant himself. Alan Hakman is known to be the best cutter in the business in his seeming detachment from his subject matter, especially in needing to view that very ugly without judgment. He is arguably able to do so in being a loner, he having a cordial enough business relationship with fellow cutters, with his current girlfriend, Delila, the only other person in his life with some meaning to him. His work and that of his fellow cutters is getting more dangerous as a very vocal anti-implant movement is emerging in society, protesters picketing at high profile memorials where a rememory is shown. Alan’s latest job is the very sensitive one of Charles Bannister, one of the first EYE Tech executives to have his rememory done. Two issues arise in the process of this job. First, Fletcher, an ex-cutter who long ago left the business for unspecified reasons, approaches Alan wanting either to take over the job or purchase the Bannister footage, Alan who believes it is to expose the technology for the ill that it has in society by exposing something related to Bannister himself, Fletcher who will go to extreme measures to get that footage. And second, Alan discovers someone from his far past in Bannister’s footage, that very bad in Alan’s life which he thought was buried long ago literally never to rise from the grave.

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Raises Many Very Interesting Issues

In six words: great idea-not so great execution. In a slightly vague future, Robin Williams plays a video editor named Alan, his job is assembling 1-2 hour video portraits of deceased clients whose parent’s were well off enough to have had them fitted (while still in the womb) with a “Zoe” implant. Named after the corporation that initially developed this device, the implant records (24-7) everything that happens to a person during their lifetime. It is important to the story that viewers understand that these are not memories but actual recordings. This distinction is critical to the plot as well as to one of the interesting questions posed by the film; to what extent have our actual memories been distorted by time.

The editors (called cutters) must distill down this lifetime of footage into a brief highlights video, discretely deleting scenes that would be offensive to the family of the decreased. This is not that different than the writers of obituary notices (see “Closer”). The video is shown at a special memorial service called a “rememory”. To add some unnecessary complexity to the story there is a violent protest group who object to the whole concept. The basis of their objection is never adequately explained but seems to be centered on the fact that the footage is by necessity all from the person’s own “point-of-view”, with the protesters chanting “remember for yourself”.

Of course a Cutter sees everything (mostly in fast motion) making him or her privy to a person’s every secret and sin. In the film they briefly raise the most interesting question posed by this whole idea, if you knew that someone (be it man or God) would replay your entire life, to what extent would it change your behavior? In the film most (but not all) people with the implant are aware that they have it.

Knowing all this stuff makes Alan a lonely man. His philosophy: “The dead mean nothing to me, I took this job out of respect for the living”, has caused him to avoid close interpersonal relationships, which might compromise the many confidences he is keeping. Within the closed community of cutters he is known as a “Sin Eater” because of his willingness to sanitize the lives of the scum of the earth, accepting clients that the other cutters reject. Williams looks even sadder and more depressed than in did in “What Dreams May Come”. It is a extremely restrained performance, not especially challenging but perfectly suited to the mood of this film.

Alan gets in trouble when he takes on a project for a rich widow (Stephanie Romanov). Her husband knew a lot of corporate secrets and had been playing around with their young daughter. This “messing around with something much bigger” has a Raymond Chandler feel to it, and this fits nicely with what might be called a futuristic film noir production design.

Overall the many interesting ethical and philosophical questions raised by “The Final Cut” are more interesting than the film itself. In fact, there is so little real suspense and character identification that the viewing process is mostly an exercise in pulling yourself back from your contemplation of earlier scenes so that you can follow what is happening on the screen.

The film goes wrong by introducing a parallel story about Alan’s childhood. While well handled, it fails in its purpose of explaining his adult motivations. By the end we care nothing about his character or his actions and are back to day dreaming about the many issues the film raises but does not adequately address.

Then again, what do I know? I’m only a child.

undercooked sci-fi premise

Cutters splice together the dead’s memories for viewing at their funerals which have been recorded by the Zoe implants. They work under three specific rules. Alan Hakman (Robin Williams) is a dedicated cutter whose latest controversial job is connected to a childhood trauma which still haunts him.

This undercooked sci-fi premise is not thought out completely. The basic idea has obvious corruption possibilities. It’s hard to imagine people doing this without self-control unless it’s compulsory. Somebody just needs to ask a few more questions before the premise gets used. It’s what I call high school sci-fi writing. The religious opposition is too easy in a way. Wiping your glasses is too general to be specific like that. I wipe my glasses like that. All of that is excusable. Sci-fi can use simplistic ideas to great effect. The bigger sin is its slow first half. I do like that the movie is showing us this world but it’s slow visually. His job is basically sitting, interviewing, and watching video. It’s not a kinetic job. While everybody else is driven by bigger issues, he’s driven by an interior personal issue. It does try to get into some interesting ideas but it feels ham-fisted. It can never feel real. The attempt is interesting but the execution is lacking.

Promising Trailer and Premise, Awful Execution

In a near undefined future, people may have a Zoe microchip implanted in their nervous system to permit their families retrieve the best moments of their memories and watch on video after their deaths. This process is called “Rememory” and Alan H. Hakman (Robin Williams), a man traumatized by an incident in his childhood, is the best cutter of the Eye Tech Corporation. The company is facing groups that oppose to the “Rememory” and the ex-cutter Fletcher (Jim Caviezel) is leading these opponents. When Alan is assigned to prepare the final cut of the memories of the Eye Tech lawyer Charles Bannister, his Zoe chip is disputed by Fletcher. Meanwhile, Alan finds that he has also an implanted microchip, which is against the rules of a cutter.

When I saw the trailer of “The Final Cut”, I became anxious to see this promising sci-fi movie. Unfortunately, the awful execution spoils the great premise. The story has a good beginning, but when Alan finds his implant, the movie gets completely lost of direction. Most of the characters are horribly developed. Delila (Mira Sorvino) is completely inconsistent, has no chemistry with Robin Williams and their relationship is totally weird. The cutter Alan (Robin Williams) finds that he has an implant, which is against the policy of Eye Tech. But this technology is a monopoly of Eye Tech, and the information about Alan is in the database and could be easily checked when he was hired. Therefore, how could he be hired to the function of cutter? Jim Caviezel has a horrible interpretation, and the relationship of Jennifer Bannister (Stephanie Romaniov – the Lilah of “Angel”) with her deceased husband is not clear. Further, if Charles Bannister knew that he had an implant, how could he abuse of his own daughter? The screenplay of this cheesy movie has so many holes and flaws that look like a Suisse cheese. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): “Invasão de Privacidade” (“Privacy Invasion”)