BEFORE: From Bruce Willis as an ex-CIA agent to Bruce Willis as an FBI agent - this one's a no-brainer as a follow-up. And with the summer temperatures settling in here in NYC, the meaning of the title is an extra bonus.
THE PLOT: An outcast FBI agent is assigned to protect a 9 year old autistic boy who is the target for assassins after cracking a top secret government code.
AFTER: This is another one of those films with different government agencies fighting each other, something I've seen a lot of lately. Last night we had the new CIA vs. the old CIA, and tonight it's the FBI vs. the NSA. (National Security Agency, aka "No Such Agency")
This is also a film with a heavy buy-in. First, you have to believe that the NSA could create a master code, the best ever, one that can't be cracked. Which is a fallacy in itself, because codes are made to be decoded, so that a message can be transmitted and understood. And any code needs a key for decryption, or else what's the point? So, really there's no need for anyone to make better codes, there's just a need for better protection on the key, or a better key.
You also have to believe that a couple of cryptographers, without authorization from their superior, would have the code published in a puzzle magazine to see if it is "geek proof" - meaning that there's always the chance someone out there can decipher a code, if they're skilled enough. Which is also bunk, because there are codes and ciphers that have stood the test of time, simply because someone didn't keep track of the key - I'm thinking of the famous Beale ciphers, of which only the first of three ciphers has been decoded, with the key being the Declaration of Independence. Yes, I realize that a recent History Channel show has determined the ciphers to be a hoax (most likely a scam to sell newspapers in the 1880's). But there are others.
Then you have to believe that this 9-year-old kid, who has to be reminded daily that stoves are hot, is capable of breaking the code just by looking at it. This is what I call the "Rain Man" fallacy, the Hollywood-inspired belief that kids with autism, or Asperger's, are hidden geniuses or savants. This is also being used in a Fox TV show called "Touch" right now. I'm sure every parent with a kid who has a learning disability, or A.D.D. wants to believe that their kid is going to be super-smart someday, or a whiz playing the violin, if they just receive enough instruction. I understand there are savants and prodigies, but I'm guessing there's a ratio here, maybe 1,000:1 in favor of kids who aren't.
I don't pretend to understand autism, or Asperger's, or A.D.D. - but I just know that we didn't have these things when I was a kid, or at least they didn't have names. We just had kids in my school who acted up, or had trouble learning. So the stats on these syndromes are way up in recent years - I have to wonder if that just means there are better or different methods of detection now.
NITPICK POINT: The magazine in question is called World of Puzzles - it's an offshoot of Games magazine, and I subscribe to both (though I haven't had as much time to read them, since starting the movie project). In fact, my grandfather gave me a copy of the first issue of Games, back in 1976. And it didn't turn me into someone who wanted to work in cryptography, it just made me an adult who likes crosswords (regular and cryptic), acrostics, sudoku and the like.
NITPICK POINT #2: Games and World of Puzzles magazines do feature contests (I was particularly happy when I won a Games T-shirt a few years back - they're not for sale, so they're like the Holy Grail for puzzle-solvers) but if they printed a puzzle or tough code in W.O.P. without the solution in the back, there would be hell to pay. Letters would be written, and subscriptions would be cancelled. It looks like the code was disguised as a word search, but one with symbols and Greek letters mixed in. They've been known to do a bit of this to make word searches harder, but the whole grid can't be made up of symbols, that just wouldn't work as a puzzle.
They used to do a "Hidden Contest" about 4 times a year in Games magazine - meaning that somewhere, in some puzzle or hidden somewhere on the pages, there were instructions on sending something (a blue letter "A", for example) in to the address on the masthead, and those people would be eligible for a randomly-awarded prize. One time, it was hidden in the uncircled letters of a word search - but they never repeat themselves, so ever since, the unused letters on those puzzles have formed a poem, or a short essay on a particular topic relevant to the puzzle. I don't see the puzzle editors changing this tradition because the shadow-ops division of the government asked them to.
Also starring Alec Baldwin (last heard in "Cats & Dogs"), Chi McBride (last seen in "What's Love Got to Do With It"), Miko Hughes, Kim Dickens, Bodhi Elfman, John Carroll Lynch (last seen in "Gran Torino"), with cameos from Peter Stormare (last seen in "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus"), Camryn Manheim, and blues singer Koko Taylor.
RATING: 4 out of 10 cups of cocoa
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