Gattaca 1998
I know this one has been out for a long time. But I don’t remember hearing much about it and it turned out to be a pretty well made movie. Definitely worth trying on video. Though I guess in some ways it is a science fiction movie, it’s borrows more from Hitchcock than Spielberg. A great cast of characters with another great small performance by Alan Arkin as the detective. I like just about everything I’ve ever seen him in, including especially the father in Edward Scissorhands. He’s so down-to-earth he’s surreal.
The movie is set in the not-too-distant future where parents can choose any combination of their genes that they want. “You could conceive a thousand times and never do so well.” The main character was conceived normally ("a faith baby"), but upon birth his whole life was laid out to his parents including the 90% chance of death by heart failure by the age of 30. He has a younger brother who is optimized and as a kid beats him in every way. Nonetheless, the older brother studies hard, trains hard, and makes a deal with a planned guy who is crippled in an accident. Assuming the guy’s identity and genetic reputation he has a chance to realize his dream of working for Gattaca (like NASA, only using the letters of the Amino acids that make up DNA chains, cute) and hoping one day to be an astronaut. By using the crippled guy’s blood he has a drop of blood tested for genetic makeup. “Congratulations” says the doctor. “What about my job interview?” he asks. “You just had it.” Eventually the flight director is murdered which brings in Alan Arkin (a genetic have-not who resents the haves at Gattaca) who finds an eyelash that tells them there is an imposter in their midst (which the Gattaca guys can’t believe, so confident that someone genetically inferior could never cut it).
You’d think by that long paragraph of setup that I’d given most of the movie away, but really that’s just the framework. There is still a great story there and I’ve only told you about the first 20 minutes. If you are leery of sci-fi I will tell you that none of the plot takes place in space, it is all on the ground. So you don’t have to worry about crazy space stuff.
This movie isn’t terribly violent (some yucky shots of the murder scene but no actual violence), no bad language that I can remember, no sex, and no car crashes. And yet, it’s still a good movie! Go figure.
B+
Written: 02 Nov 1998
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital