The Imitation Game

Movie Title-- The Imitation Game

Release Year-- 2014

Running Time-- 1 Hour and 54 Minutes

Director-- Morten Tyldum

Cast-- Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightly, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard, Charles Dance, Mark Strong, James Northcote, Steven Waddington, Ilan Goodman, Jack Tarlton

Based on the true story of Alan Turing, the father of modern day computing; Turing leads a motley crew of scholars during World War II that is formed to crack the “uncrackable” codes of Germany's Enigma Machine.

After Britain declares war on Germany in 1939 Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) is accepted by Commander Alastair Denniston (Dance) for a code-breaking job at Bletchley Park to break the Enigma codes that the German's use to encrypt their communications with, along side of Hugh Alexander (Goode), John Cairncross (Leech), Peter Hilton (Beard), Keith Furman (Goodman) and Charles Richards (Tarlton). Turing works alone and focuses all of his efforts into making a decryption machine instead of the more time consuming decoding by hand.

Denniston refuses to fund the construction of the machine, so Turing writes to Wintson Churchill who makes Turing the team leader and sets up funding for the machine. Turing then fires Furman and Richards due to them not being mathematicians and demands that the rest of the group help make the machine with him.

Needing more people on the team, Turing places a crossword puzzle in the paper with the heading “solve in under ten minutes for an exciting career opportunity” which leads him to choosing Joan Clarke (Knightly) and Jack Good (Northcote) to round out the team. Clarke's parents do not approve of her being on an all male team, so Turing sets up a job for her as a telegraph clerk since it is an all female job and sends cryptographic material to her room in secret.

Together they work on a machine that will change the future of the war but not without having to work through the trials and struggles that comes with one of the most top secret projects in the history of the world.

I enjoyed this film. There were a few parts that did seem a little lengthy but a story like this should be a little lengthy. It is basically told as a flash back; the film starts it is 1951, then flashing back to 1939 and at one point going back even further to his school days.

I adore Benedict Cumberbatch; I feel like he is one of those actors that can take on a role and totally transform into that character. Don't count out the rest of the cast of this one though, this film is peppered with great actors.

Alan Turing is a very interesting man, it is just too bad that he has such a sad story though. I won't say anything else for anyone that has not already seen this film or doesn't really know Turing's story but I do want to try to find a good documentary on him to review. I think it is good to learn about people that have actually done things to better the world or “saved” the future, especially in today's age of instant gratification and sudden celebrity.

Don't take my word for it, sit down and check it out for yourself. You should maybe grab some tissues just in case but whatever you do, Don't Forget the Popcorn!