thinker1691 On Octuber 7th, the United States went to war with Afganistan and tried to learn as much about the Tiliban as possible. Yet a decade later, America is no closer to victory than when it began. One of the Principal reasons for the slow progress is because the American military has banned it's gay cryptographers from service to it's country. It seems little has been learned from past mistakes such as the Brisish made during world War II. Back then it was a remarkable individual named Alan Turing, a British mathematician and cryptanalyst who Broke the mysterious German Egnima Machine and thus brought the War to a speedy end. In this film called " Breaking the Code " Derek Jacobi, plays Alan Turing who's insights and expertise solved that elusive problem. The life of Turing is prime example of what world government can do to destroy people who threaten the moral fiber of a country. Yet the movie itself is a half baked attempt to render the great man's life on film. Glossing over his life, it jumps from his youth to his later life stopping briefly to remind audiences of his hidden world as a reclusive gay individual. Alun Armstrong plays Mick Ross a British Inspector who investigates a minor robbery and discovers Turning's homosexuality, causing him to lose his anonymity and thus brings him to the pubic's attention, bringing him shame and ridicule. William Mannering plays a youthful Alan Turing, living with his mother who learns of his personal problems and the legal effects of the law. The film tries it's best to mix his past with his war-time achievements and falls short due to it's half handed attempt. Still, Jacobi is brilliant as the misunderstood scientist who has to undergo Chemical castration as part of his criminal sentence. This is a must movie for all his fans and I found it extremely well done. I easily recommend it to anyone studying the life Alan Turning. ****

Robert J. Maxwell It's a low budget BBC version of a talky play about Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician and homosexual who is haunted by the authorities and commits suicide. I don't know how the Brits do it. Here we are, churning out expensive pep pills like "A Brilliant Mind."Before watching it, I was a little afraid I'd get bogged down in math, a subject in which I have the skills of an ox. But there's not much about math in it. And the last thing we see of Turing being introduced to the Enigma machine, which controls the operation of German U-boats in World War II, is his pausing over this compact but complex apparatus, fingering his chin, and saying, "Hmmmm." He tries to explain it later, when the extent of bureaucratic interest in the interaction between his sex life and his secret research is becoming clearer to him, but he fails. I got more out of his impassioned spiel to his boss at Bletchley Park, Richard Johnson, when Turing goes on about "consistency, completeness, and decidability." I think I understood it because it has to do not just with math but with science in general. I got Goedel's paradox because Turing explains it so simply, and I got "decidability" only if it relates in the way I hope it does to Karl Popper. If that's wrong, I got lost.That would be disappointing because I wanted MORE of an explanation of what his work was about. Instead, most of the film deals with the "enigma" of his sexual life. It's hard now to believe exactly how primitive our views of sexuality were sixty years ago, both in Britain and elsewhere. And Turing was no manipulator. Aside from his brainstorms and his spells of mutual masturbation, he was naive, blunt, and sloppy. Derek Jacobi has Turing and his mannerisms -- his whole personality -- pinned down perfectly. It's a masterful performance.The rest of the cast does equally well. Turing's mother is the Queen of Denial. Richard Johnson is Turing's sympathetic but pragmatic boss at Bletchley. I've always admired Richard Johnson's work, ever since "The Haunting" (1963), in which he plays a character with my title and profession. Of course he's aged quite a bit and it sent me rushing to the mirror to make sure I was as radiantly youthful as ever. He does a marvelous job here as a bisexual who has learned the ropes. And, if nothing else, he illustrates exactly how ugly men's clothing was in 1940. If Turing had been a different sort of guy, he'd have leaped to his feet at their introduction and shouted, "That SUIT is a CATASTROPHE!" It's a sad movie though. It leaves us wondering why we can't leave other people to their own devices as long as they hurt no one. At the time, the official argument was that you can't have "nancy boys" in positions where security might be compromised by blackmail. The solution, of course, is simple. Make it all perfectly public and legal in the first place.

drc51-2 Although excellent drama in its own right, with stellar acting and directing, the film is also one of the few insightful portrayals of creative genius. The film gets it all right, from depictions of Turing's precocious (yet difficult) boyhood, to accounts of the actual creative process. This is a must see film.

edward wilgar I had never heard of Alan Turing, the mathematical genius behind the cracking of the German's `Enigma Code' during World War II, despite the fact that he was also heavily involved in the invention of the digital computer.And I was amazed to learn from this excellent biography of Turing (who should surely be remembered as a `celebrity scientist' in the Einstein class) that the reason for his burial by the British establishment is the simple matter of his sexuality. Yes, Turing was gay in an era when homosexuality was not only unfashionable but indeed illegal!Apart from the intrinsic interest of the subject, `Breaking the Code' is illuminated by a superb performance from Derek Jacobi (with a hint of his 'I Claudius' stammer) who brilliantly conveys not only Turing's fierce intelligence but also his enthusiasm for his discipline and his need to pass on this passion to his colleagues.Supporting roles are well cast and played with playwright and sometime actor Harold Pinter not out of place beside veterans Richard Johnson and Prunella Scales but Jacobi's tour-de-force is the thing.I hope I have encouraged you to see this British made-for-tv movie if you get a chance.