THE IMITATION GAME - 2014

There have been plenty movies throughout the cinematic age of war and it’s heroes, most of them pay homage to the heroes that defeated armies with their guns and ammunition and occasionally you will get the film that shows the one soldier who stood up and protected his war buddies on the field but how often do you get a film that goes behind all that action and still till this day has done more for mankind and its fight against those that wish to bring it down in one way or another, more than any cape wearing, hammer throwing, green giant or super human possible and best of all this person actually existed.

The year is 1951, two police officers are at Alan Turing’s a Cambridge Mathematician’s home investigating a break and enter whilst during their interrogation Alan begins telling his story of back when he worked in Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park was the United Kingdom’s central site of the Government Code and Cypher School. The film then flashes back to Alan’s childhood in 1927 where he is a young boy who is given a code cracking book from his friend Christopher, a romantic friendship is formed between the two boys until the day Christopher doesn’t come back to school. 1939 World War II, Alan travels to Bletchley Park, where, working under Commander Alastair Denniston, he joins the cryptography team of Hugh Alexander, John Cairncross, Peter Hilton, Keith Furman, and Charles Richards. The team are trying to crack the ciphers the Enigma machine uses, the Nazis use Enigma daily to send out orders but every night at midnight the code changes its the teams job to decipher these codes giving the allies the much needed break they require to get ahead in this war. Alan is a real pain to work with and despises his colleagues who feel exactly the same toward him. He works alone designing the machine that will decipher Enigma. Alan approaches Denniston to fund construction of the machine but is denied, Alan not giving in decides he will go to the top and writes to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who then puts him Alan in charge of the team and also gives the funds to finish the machine. Turing fires Furman and Richards and to find their replacements puts a really difficult crossword in newspapers. Joan Clarke, surpasses all expectations and ends up on the team but due to her parents other arrangement about her newly found employment need to be arranged. Unfortunately in 1952 Alan is disgraced and sent to prison for the most disgusting reason imaginable I will not give away here...

The story of Alan Turing and how he and his machine broke the unbreakable code was a real let down for me, Once the credits began to roll the only things going through my head was what I would have done differently had I directed the film myself, I really expected so much more and I’m more than surprised that such an amazing event in history was dealt with so placidly. According to the biography the film was based on a lot of the film was “pampered” to make it a lot more glamourous than it was in reality especially the relation between Alan and his fiancé Joan, Alan as a human was a lot more than the mad scientist as portrayed but I don’t think that was the actors fault more the direction he was given. So if you take away the truth of the film and facts you are left with something that is somewhat entertaining for at least half an hour.

In all things though there are the bad and there is the good what was fantastic about the film was the actors, I personally feel they did an amazing job. Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek, Sherlock) plays Alan Turing and he did a brilliant job at bringing his character to life, apparently the family of the real Alan Turing were amazed at how well Benedict portrayed their family member which really says a lot in my book. Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean saga, Domino) plays Joan Clarke, Matthew Goode who also wrote the screenplay (Match point, Watchmen) plays Hugh Alexander, Allen Leech (Downton Abbey, Rome) plays John Cairncross, Matthew Beard (One Day, The Riot Club) plays Peter Hilton and Charles Dance (Dracula Untold, Game of Thrones) plays Commander Denniston. I think without all these amazing actors this film would have failed in what it delivered. Morten Tyldum (Headhunters, Fallen Angels) directed the film and for me I can’t help feeling if the film was directed by someone with a lot more experience and know how would have delivered a five star film. One thing he did do right though was using Alexandre Desplat to organise the soundtrack and score for the film, the other amazing aspect of the film.

The Imitation Game was long and at times boring due to drab scenes and a very disorientated timeline, there was a very important part of Alan’s life that was only slightly touched, I’m not saying the film had to be LGBT themed but if that’s who the man was then surely the film should have had a lot more about who he was emotionally and not just mentally.

The Imitation Game – 3 out of 5 BanShee Screams.

Thanks for reading.

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