I don’t know who discovered Philip K. Dick — I guess that would be Donald Wollheim at Ace Books, who published his earlier novels, which was where I first encountered him, back when I was in high school. They were not unusual novels for the time, but darker than was the norm for the fifties. I particularly remember the rather horrifying journey through a series of human minds (Eye in the Sky) and the Third World War in which the robots that the two sides had developed to do their fighting for them were busily exterminating their creators (the novelette “Second Variety”). And then, a few years later, there was that alternate-world classic The Man In the High Castle (which was, in some ways, reminiscent of Cyril M. Kornbluth’s earlier “Two Dooms”).

Remarkably, after his death Dick has become something of a staple of the Hollywood world. While the moguls of filmdom barely touch Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers) and have totally ignored Poul Anderson, they have made four, count them, films out of Philip K. Dick’s stories. ⁽¹⁾ The first was, of course, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, based on the novel with the unusual title Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Years later came the Arnie vehicle Total Recall (from “We can Remember It For You Wholesale”). There was a shorter delay, I think, before the appearance of Screamers, which I never saw although it was based on one of my favorite Dick stories (the above-mentioned “Second Variety”, though the film apparently moved the story from earth to a planet orbiting the star Sirius). And now we have Minority Report, which I like to think will be recognized as something of a classic, like the earlier Blade Runner.

Half a century from now, a generation of teratogenically drug-damaged children has largely disappeared, leaving behind it, like foam on a seashore, three young people who have the ability to look into the future and see murder. These children have been appropriated by the government of the District of Columbia and sequestered so that they can be used to anticipate murders and lead to the arrest and incarceration sine die of the perpetrators before the crime is actually committed; no coddling of scofflaws here, no outmoded customs such as lawyers, court trials and habeas corpus. The operation (Bureau of Precrime) is headed by Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) and operations are under the control of John Anderton (Tom Cruise), a druggie cop who has been divorced by his wife after their son disappeared during a visit to a public swimming pool. And it has been so successful — not one murder in DC for the past half decade — that there is going to be a referendum about making the system national. Of course, Precrime has become a choice political plum, and the Department of Justice is anxious to take it over, and has sent a young official to look over Anderton’s shoulder and take command as necessary.

There do seem to be a few minor problems with Precrime. Anderton is not aware, until halfway through the film, that the precogs don’t always agree about what’s going to happen; sometimes one of them, usually the young woman Agatha (Samantha Morton), will produce a different version of the future than that of the twins. This “minority report” is deliberately expunged from the records, for the sake of a spurious unanimity. Yet the “minority report” is important in discovering a fundamental flaw of the system.

Anderton is keeping his eye on an old case that bothers him, one in which (as he later discovers) there was a minority report from Agatha. And suddenly he finds himself defined as a perpetrator in a premeditated murder that will occur in some 36 hours — the murder of an individual he doesn’t even know! Much of the movie has Anderton on the run; enjoy the running battle with his former colleagues in an alley and adjoining apartment house; don’t enjoy his eye transplant. Anderton has to find out why he has been tagged, how to avoid actually committing the murder in question (the solution is, at least in principle, easy), and who committed the murder, six years earlier, that points out the fundamental flaw in the system.

It’s an excellent film, with a good story (what else are we to expect from Dick?), good acting, fun action scenes, convoluted plot, and fine pacing — when I left the theater and looked at my watch, I couldn’t believe how much time had actually passed. Go see it at the movies. And then get the DVD when it comes out. Maybe you can encourage Spielberg to make more such films.

⁽¹⁾ When I wrote this I was unaware of Impostor, which also came out in 2002 and which I have not seen. Paycheck came out later, and A Scanner Darkly, with Keanu Reeves, is currently being developed for release in 2005.