- Directed by Robert Hloz
- Written by Romislav Cecka, Robert Hloz, Zdenek Jecelin
- Stars Andrea Mohylová, Matěj Hádek, Václav Neužil, Milan Ondrík, Karel Dobrý
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 55 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0gdvqEWtFs
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was a science fiction crime drama, but it’s got body horror and the dead being brought back to life, so we’re going to say it overlaps into the horror genre. The futuristic world they create is great, with lots of technology being used. The story is gripping and moves well. All the film elements and people in it were excellent. Big thumbs up from both of us.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open in central Europe, 2041, and we’re told that violent crime has increased. All citizens now have the constitutional right to be revived in the eventuality of an unknown death. This new technology is called “restore point.”
We cut to a quartet of people being murdered. Detective Em is scanning the building to find the people before they are killed. She kicks in the door to catch the killer, who says restore points are unnatural. Rather than be captured, the man jumps off the roof.
Em’s husband Peter is a concert pianist, and she has to work instead of going to his latest recital; no, that was a recording of a previous holographic phone call that she was talking to. The car drives her to the FEF office. The boss chews her out for letting the River of Life suspect “escape.” After 48 hours, the save points expire, and he was waiting until just that amount of time to kill his victims so it would be permanent. The River of Life wants the restore points eliminated. We hear that Peter actually died two years ago, and Em holds a grudge against the terrorist group; there’s some doubt as to whether she threw the terrorist off the roof herself or not. The boss assigns her to a new case.
The latest victim was the head of the resuscitation unit, and his wife. Neither of the victims had a valid backup, which isn’t really possible. They both had restore insurance. Rohan, the CEO of the company, wants to go private, which would allow for instant, continuous backups and restore. As it is now, people have to keep submitting their backup manually, and they must make sure it’s within the 48 hour hard limit. He passes Em off to Petra. She demonstrates the process to Em. A kid who was killed in a car accident is reborn and restored. His sister was in the car, and she didn’t back up regularly, and they aren’t allowed to restore after a backup exceeds 48 hours.
She runs into David Kirlstat, the latest murder victim, walking around in the garage. He says Rohan is doing some kind of coverup, and he has been restored. He was restored by a six-month old backup, so he has no recent memories. That’s an experimental process. “There will be side effects; I won’t live long.”
She connects the River of Life murders to Viktor Toffer, a known seditionist; he might be involved in David’s death. She goes to his house and leaves David in the car outside. Em confronts Viktor inside, He has a computer key for her, but David comes in and shoots Viktor, who runs away.
Agent Mansfield with Europol takes over the case, and he wants to work with Em. David explains there are three keys: he has one, Rohan has another, and the third is in a safe. He doesn’t know how Viktor got one. They go to David’s home office, where David says there’s a virus wiping out a bunch of backups not just his – which is why he didn’t have a valid backup. There are some discrepancies in the backup discs for him and his wife as well. David is six months out of date, so he doesn’t know the code to the safe anymore, and they have to leave before the police arrive.
David explains why it’s illegal to restore someone after 48 hours, “Frankenstein’s Disease” where cell memory clashes with brain memory, and it’s fatal for real. He takes an experimental treatment for the syndrome. He watches some recent videos of himself, but he doesn’t remember any of it. David’s wife started calling Viktor six months ago, but no one knows why. Mansfield says David’s wife gave Viktor the key.
Mansfield says that he knows Rohan woke up an old copy of David, so they go to question him again. No one knows the system like David did, and he needed him back. More than a thousand backups have been deleted by the virus, and people are starting to die for real. If it gets out, there will be mass panic. Mansfield decides to go along with Rohan’s cover up, since they don’t know where either Viktor or David is.
Mansfield finds David hiding at Em’s house. He sees that she hasn’t backed up in 29 hours and pulls a gun on her, planning to shoot her for a reboot and just taking David. There’s a scuffle with the three of them and Mansfield ends up shot in the head. Em and David go on the run; only they know about the virus, and it won’t be hard to make them “forget.”
The two go to a club with a black market guy with digital teeth. They track down Viktor’s aunt out in the countryside. She knows that the pair are wanted by the police, as it’s on the front page of the digital newspaper. The old lady suggests that there is no River of Life, it’s just propaganda by the government. She believes that “erasing is not murder.”
David plays the piano, but he says he’s never done that before. That’s called a “gift,” something that was never approved for the public. Abilities can be implanted in the process of a restore. David finds Peter’s 683 day-old restore point in the glove compartment of the car. She catches Viktor, but he denies being part of the River of Life because it doesn’t really exist. He says Rohan himself started the River of Life to stir up fear and demand for the restore service. David confirms that it’s plausible.
Em’s backup has passed the 48 hour limit, and she doesn’t dare run a backup because David says it would work like a homing beacon bringing the cop.
Meanwhile we see they brought Mansfield back.
Viktor runs in front of a car, but Em puts a backup device on him before he dies. They block the signal so it only stays on the local disc. David suggests using the first restoration unit at the university where he used to teach. They put Viktor in the machine, and he is restored. Knowing the police will be there soon, she has David make a backup. Viktor talks about Rohan paying the River of Life to make the attacks. He gave the evidence to David’s wife, and that’s why she was killed– by David himself. Which this earlier version of David has no memory of.
Agent Mansfield comes in, gun drawn. He doesn’t know for sure who shot him in the head, but he shoots Viktor and David in theirs. He then shoots Em in the heart and kills her. Masfield leaves with David’s backup in his pocket.
Rohan goes to David’s house, and “Florence” is the password for the safe. Except Em’s boss there waiting for him, gun drawn. We see that Em actually backed herself up before getting shot. The boss fills Em in on what they’re going to do to Rohan and the company. Mansfield and Rohan are going to prison. David is a murderer– but not the David they have on file. This David didn’t kill anyone so he’s a free man now.
Em talks to David at his wife’s funeral. She gives him his wife’s four-month-old backup; will he restore her?
Commentary
This one has lots of believable technology, beyond what we have not but feasible. It’s a very futuristic looking movie, unlike so many where everything is the same as today except for one little detail. Still, the “big idea” here is the save points, and they really do cover a lot of the angles of a technology of that sort. The acting is good, the sets, some of which are CGI, look great. The story is pretty dense, but it all seemed to make sense in the end.
This was far better than we expected from the trailers. Excellent!