a_chinn Jeremy Northam plays a corporate spy caught between two rival firms in a cyberpunk future where he's not always quite sure who he's working for, who's on his side, or even of his own identity. Lucy Liu plays a femme fatale of sorts who helps (or is she manipulating?) Northam. It's a clever twisting plot, though the film suffers some from it's limited budget and suffers more so from under developed characters, which made me less interested in what happens to them. These strengths and weaknesses were also true of writer/director Vincenzo Natali's previous film "Cube" (he also later directed the underrated "Splice"). Overall, the Byzantine plot is so clever and so much smarter than most science fiction films, it makes this film well worth checking out by sci-fi fans despite it's deficiencies.

Mohamed Abdalla If you expect to see breathtaking thriller movie,then don't watch this dull and pale one.The movie starts showing "Morgan Sullivan" applying for a job in a high tech company about spying job, but then he gets in contact with a woman that is going to change all his beliefs although her few show ups.The good thing that every time she shows up, she starts to explain to him about everything he doubts about.The image was really dark and pale throughout the movie except the last scene, it really wasn't an appealing thing to see that lack of coloration.The always surprising look on the face of "Jeremy Northam" is weird specially it's added with his tired look which really felt lazy and not related to any thrill. I guess "Lucy Liu" did her worst roles in this one.Finally, it's a good idea's movie that may keep you wondering throughout it -if you kept watching it till the end and succeed in fighting the boredom-, it has a lot of cheap special effects that really affect the quality of the whole movie, they also forgot to deal with sound effects specialist as you will notice that the soundtrack is a continuous repeating one minute suspension music.

nathanbliss-64433 My favourite film of all time. A movie-masterpiece. They just don't make films like this any more, in terms of quality. Cypher proves you don't need to throw huge amounts of money to make a great film. It contains the best plot twist of any film I have ever seen. And I've seen many, many films. This film is the embodiment of the exact opposite of the word 'cliched'. I've already seen it about 7 times and still never get bored with it. An ingenious plot which is more intelligent & original than the plot of any modern high budget Hollywood blockbuster, top-notch acting, and a script which is second to none.

aernest I ran across this on cable, and only watched it because I had NEVER seen Jeremy Northam in ANYTHING modern. This was really a stylish little thriller along the lines of - I dunno - Matrix (not much) + Italian Job (cross/double cross)+ 1984 (dystopia for everyone). Northam is excellent, as he always is. He himself is the cypher of the title, I think, and as he peels away the multiple layers of his identity, you can see the panic under the desperately cool exterior he tries to maintain. The end came as a complete surprise to me, but maybe I'm easily fooled. It's hard to get some of Lucy Liu's (ahem) LESSER roles out of your mind when you see her in this, but she acquits herself well enough. Well-written, and well-executed - I recommend this with great enthusiasm.