British director Michael Winterbottom's films fall neatly into two categories: masterful successes and interesting near-misses. Last year's In This World definitely belonged to the first, but this chilly, opaque science fiction effort must be relegated to the second. Code 46 is set in a near future where the world's population has been divided into two groups--those with “cover,” the necessary identification papers that permit them to live in civilized cities, and the rest, who must eke out an existence in rundown settlements outside the urban areas. Moreover, since so many are clones or test-tube babies, there are stringent regulations about relations between people with identical or similar genetic backgrounds. The protagonist (Tim Robbins) is an investigator sent to ferret out, through drug-enhanced intuition, a forger among the employees of the firm that produces “covers,” but when he unmasks the woman responsible (Samantha Morton), he's irresistibly attracted to her (apparently because of their common genetic makeup) and the couple violate the law by running away together. Code 46 makes atmospheric use of real locations to create a viable facsimile of a brave new world, but its blend of film noir convention and sci-fi plotting proves unstable; in this instance, at least, Gattaca and Double Indemnity don't quite mix. Optional. [Note: DVD extras include the 17-minute making-of featurette “Obtaining Cover,” four deleted scenes, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a flawed but interesting film.] (F. Swietek)[Blu-ray Review—Feb. 23, 2016—Olive, 93 min., R, Blu-ray: $29.95—Making its Blu-ray debut, 2003's Code 46 features an excellent transfer but no extras. Bottom line: Winterbottom's uneven sci-fi thriller looks sharp on Blu-ray.]
Code 46
MGM, 93 min., R, VHS: $39.99, DVD: $26.98, Dec. 28 Volume 20, Issue 1
Code 46
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