"A suitably bedraggled Scott, resourceful Winslet, femme fatale Burrows and, in particular, West End lounge lizard Northam make the most of a well written script, which evokes a convincing mood, reflecting the true mores of war time Britain."

director: Michael Apted

cast: Dougray Scott,Jeremy Northam,Kate Winslet,Saffron Burrows

duration: 117 minutes

A classy and romantic noir thriller, 'Enigma' is a throwback to the Brit-flicks of the '40s and '50s, with a superb cast, a classic John Barry score and assured direction from Michael Apted enriching Tom Stoppard's excellent adaptation of Robert Harris' bestseller.

March 1943. Gifted young mathematician and code breaker Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) begins work again at Bletchley Park, Britain's ultra secret Station X, after forced sick leave due to a nervous breakdown. The Bletchley centre is in a state of panic. The German Navy has suddenly changed the code used on their enigma cipher machines, leaving a massive Allied merchant shipping convoy, vital to the British war effort, open to U boat Attack in the Atlantic. The unconventional Jericho broke the first code, and reluctantly his Bletchley bosses need his expertise again.

British Intelligence believes there is a spy at work in Bletchley, who informed the Germans that their first code had been broken. Meanwhile, Jericho learns that Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), a beautiful Bletchley girl with whom he became dangerously infatuated, has fled the station.

Visiting the cottage Claire shared with Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), who arranges intercepted ciphers, Jericho discovers four original Bletchley cryptograms hidden by the missing girl, so he teams up with Hester to discover what Claire was doing, before suave British spy Wigram (Jeremy Northam) can track her down.

A suitably bedraggled Scott, resourceful Winslet, femme fatale Burrows and, in particular, West End lounge lizard Northam make the most of a well written script, which evokes a convincing mood, reflecting the true mores of war time Britain. Apted keeps the involved plot moving at a rapid pace, while Barry's score heightens still further the emotional resonance.

Conclusive proof that you don't need a vast budget and a riot of computer effects to make a taut, intelligent and moving war movie.

Source: Popcorn.co.uk