Enigma

Michael Apted, 2001 (117 mins, Cert. 15)

Based on Robert Harris's bestseller and set in 1943, Enigma revolves around Bletchley Park, the HQ for monitoring and deciphering coded World War 2 German messages. Tom Jericho (Scott), Britain's finest code-breaker, faces a desperate race against time to crack Germany's use of enigma cipher machines before vital shipping fleets are lost.
(Playhouse Publicity)

As fictionalisations of crucial episodes in history go, this is a pretty good effort. The true story of Bletchley Park's battle to repeatedly crack and re-crack Enigma, and the heroism of the sailors that risked their lives to retrieve material from U-boats to assist the code-breakers, is sensationaly exciting in itself. That the film industry feels a need to dress it up with a rather silly love story and thriller format indicates the difficulty of conveying that exitement to a cinema audience. As a thriller, this is formulaic (if expertly crafted) but enough of the real story is injected to make it a well-worthwhile film. In that it brings the story of the decyphering of Enigma to a wide audience it is very valuable indeed.
(Steve Fagg)

Seen: Tuesday, 26th February, 2002 (Harlow Playhouse)