Final Cut (2004)

"A slick sci-fi thriller that comes complete with enough twists to keep audiences satisfied and enough moral quandaries to keep the thinkers happy.  Chris Kaltenbach, Baltimore Sun
"A satisfyingly eerie thriller.  Gregory Weinkauf, Dallas Observer

Editor's Note Omar Naim's futuristic science-fiction story generates many mysterious, alluring, and thought-provoking questions about memory, surveillance, and the ethics of personal privacy. Set in the future, THE FINAL CUT offers a vision of a world where soon-to-be parents agree to let doctors surgically implant memory chips into the brains of their unborn children. These memory chips are like video cameras with infinite tape stock that comprehensively record the lives of their hosts through the hosts' own eyes--for better or for worse. When a host dies, a "cutter"--played here by an eerily introspective Robin Williams--receives the memory chip footage from the deceased person's family in order to edit the memories for a palatable funereal screening, called a "rememory." But are memories public or private? Is it fair for a cutter to decide what comprises a host's life story? And do people behave differently knowing that someone will view their lives, even their most intimate and discreet moments, as a short film? THE FINAL CUT's use of sharp and furtive handheld camera footage to depict the perspective of memory, set in contrast with the evenly measured cinematography of the rest of the film, constantly foregrounds the medium of film as memory-capturing and memory-making device. With an understated politic and a tightly wound narrative, this film delivers an open-minded and sophisticated meditation on ethics and technology, guilt and redemption, and the property rights of one's own cerebral cortex.

	Brendan Fletcher
	Genevieve Buechner
	James Caviezel
	Mimi Kuzyk
	Mira Sorvino
	Robin Williams
	Stephanie Romanov
	Thom Bishops
	Dede Allen - Editor
	Nick Wechsler - Producer
	Omar Naim - Screenplay
	Omar Naim - Director
	Robert Brakey - Editor
	Tak Fujimoto - Cinematographer

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
The movie is bookended with the story of a childhood tragedy that may have twisted Alan into the Cut - Roger Ebert

Seattle Post-Intelligencer 7 of 10
One of the year's few sci-fi films that actually takes itself seriously, and a movie that goes a lon - William Arnold