Cypher (2002)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Morgan Sullivan (Jeremy Northam) leaves his boring suburban life to take a job as an industrial spy at Digicorp. He goes to conventions to record presentations. He meets the mysterious Rita Foster (Lucy Liu) and he's pulled into an ever confusing world of competing corporate espionage.This has a great surreal paranoid feel. However some of it has to be attributed to the complicated mess of relationships. It's twist upon twist until the movie stops being compelling. The style is still interesting. Northam and Liu are both good. Director Vincenzo Natali continues to show some fascinating ideas.

Morgan takes a polygraph test for his job at Digicorp, where he is to do corporate espionage, primarily against Digicorp's rival, Sunways Systems. He gets a new identity, Jack Thursby, and Morgan is to fill in the blanks on what personality Jack has. His usual job is to go to conferences and listen and record speeches given by rival companies.His first assignment takes him to Buffalo, where Jack represents Fairway Fragrances. He has opportunities to prop up his cover stories, like smoking cigarettes, drinking single malt scotch, and having grown up in the south pacific islands. He meets Rita on his first trip. Between the first and second trip, Morgan tells his wife that her father can forget Morgan's working for him. She tells him he can either apologise or leave the house, which I presume he did. His next trip is to Omaha.Rita intervenes: gives him meds to deal with his headaches, tells him not to turn on his pen. He does neither, and he still gets visions and headaches. He starts taking the meds. He's given a cryptic way of contacting Rita. She starts his education. At his next convention talk, he sees something entirely different. Her warnings save him from some very bad possibilities. What follows is an indoctrination: he is Jack Thursby, not Morgan Sullivan; he has a different wife, and his home base is with her in a different state.He makes it 'home;' there is a woman in residence who seems to know him and is warm to him, which is one huge improvement for him. Then he's off to a job interview at Sunways where his 'neurograph' shows he's lying. Sunways wants him to be a double agent against Digicorp. Their security chief lets him know that his real home is up for sale, and his wife his divorcing him. He also lets him know that Digicorp expects him to act as Jack Thursby; any sign of Morgan will result in his elimination.He finds that Rita does not work for Sunways, but for Sebastian Rooks. Jack goes to work with Sunways; his first job is to bug his new home. He finds that his new 'wife' is a Digicorp agent. He seeks a way out. Rita tells him to stay in place, so that Digicorp will think that they have established Jack within Sunways. Rita discusses a way out via Rooks.There are more surprises along the way. Will Jack ever make it out of this complicated mess? -------Scores--------Cinematography: 10/10 Very good.Sound: 10/10 No problems.Acting: 10/10 Lucy Liu, Jeremy Northam, Nigel Bennett, and David Hewlett were excellent.Screenplay: 8/10 There seemed to be too many layers of charades at times. I loved the ending, though, which seemed to make it all worth while.

I cannot believe its a 2002 movie..i don't know how i never saw it before, but yea this was really amazing! I must say its my favorite best thriller ever!! every scene is unpredictable and nothing is clear until the end. this movie is stylish and clever..i don't know how people come up with these ideas..at least i could have never thought of such plot! movie starts with morgan sullivan.. and it's quite blur what's going on at first..the background music is absolutely Perfect. It just boggles your mind more. ya so all i have to say is that the movie was totally unpredictable, and the first time i watched it, i was just in awe for few days!! haha

This was definitely well written, the story and plot were very good. However, I just felt as though there was something missing from it, besides the obvious like the low budget and less then adequate acting, the atmosphere wasn't there. There was so much more room for this to be a thriller and the 'paranoia' could have been made deeper so we were led astray as to who was who. On the upside, the ideas in it were believable and the use of technology wasn't too futuristic to be nonsense. All in all this is watch-able, make up your own minds, but for me I was a little disappointed in the acting because the storyline was there but that's down to the budget or the wrong actors as there has been plenty of lower-budget films with great acting... I wish I could say more but I can't criticize it further without giving spoilers!