A world with a police force that could stop crimes even before they occur would be safe and devoid of major crimes. Minority Report by Steven Spielberg brings such a world to life, crime in Washington D.C in 2054 is at all time low due to an experimental PreCrime Police program going on from the past 6 years. The program makes use of 3 three clairvoyant humans known as Precogs who can visualize details of an impending homicide, the police force then analyses the data gathered to then apprehend the would be perpetuator. This method takes care of premeditated plans but fails to work on crimes of passion.
The Precogs are connected to a system to display and store their memories, wherein they lie floating in a pool with sleep inducing drugs to separate them from any and all stimulus of the real world. The criminals that are apprehended are sentenced to a virtual-reality as their penance. The system is not perfect and can generate errors, these imperfect predictions are analysed further and purged from the records if necessary. These imperfections occur if any one of the three precogs witnesses a different future, these are purged as group precognition agreement is the foundation of the precrime laws. The state wants to implement the PreCrime program on a national level despite of the issues.
The program is led by Chief John Anderton played by Tom Cruise. Danny Witwer an agent of the US Department of Justice played by Colin Farrell discovers a prediction made by the precogs while auditing the system for national implementation. He discovers a prediction made about Anderton hidden in the system, Anderton is going to kill Leo Crow a man with apparently no connection to Anderton. Anderton who learned about the future before Witwer decides to flee the office to save himself, which then causes Witwer to issue a manhunt.
Anderton tracks down Dr.Heinman the founder of the PreCrime program, he does so to learn about anything that he can use to save himself from being persecuted. He learns about the existence of the minority reports from Dr.Heinman and tries to use those to his advantage, the minority reports which are purged from the system are programmed to be saved to the lead Precogs mind. Anderton retuns to PreCrime to kidnap Agatha the lead Precog to try and prove his innocence, they decide to track Leo Crow down and find him in a hotel room with photos of children which includes a photo of Anderton’s own son believed to be dead. Anderton in a fit of rage attacks Crow but decides to spare his life after Crow claims that he was hired to plant the photos. Crow proceeds to kill himself to make sure his family is unharmed by whoever hired him.
Further research by Anderton points him to a murder that happened in the past, Agatha’s mother Anne was murdered even after the possible culprit was caught. Witwer deduces the murderer to be Director Lamar Burgess and is killed by him as the precog system is offline. Anderton is eventually apprehended but released when Burgess inadvertently reveals his hand in the murder of Anne Lively. Anderton displays the footage of lively death publicly and proves Burgess to be the man behind her murder, a new precrime report is generated which Predicts Burgess killing Anderton. Burgess commits suicide and precrime is abandoned, the 3 precogs are moved to an undisclosed location set to live normal lives.
In conclusion Minority Report manages to show both the benefits and the downsides to knowing ones future. An amazing movie worth watching not just for the plot but the subtle visual effects that looked like magic when it was first released.
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