The Final Cut(2004)

PG-13
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, some violence, sexuality and language
1h 35m

Release Date: Oct 15, 2004 | Limited

6.1

A man who assembles films from people's memory chips finds a connection to his own darkest secret in the footage from a dead executive.

Releases

Original Release | Oct 15, 2004

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Box Office Results

Updated as of Jul 26, 2026 11:26 AM ET

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$226,296
Total US & Canada:
$551,281
Total International
$2,671,158
Total Worldwide:
$3,222,439

Current Showtimes

orround

Wed Jul 29
Thu Jul 30
Fri Jul 31
Sat Aug 1
Sun Aug 2
Mon Aug 3
Tue Aug 4

Director & Top Cast

Omar Naim
Director

Robin Williams
Alan Hakman

Jim Caviezel
Fletcher

Mira Sorvino
Delila

Mimi Kuzyk
Thelma

Stephanie Romanov
Jennifer Bannister

Tarek Bishara

Hasan

Genevieve Buechner

Isabel Bannister

Brendan Fletcher

Michael

Vincent Gale

Simon

Casey Dubois

Young Alan - 9

Liam Ranger

Young Louis - 9

Joely Collins

Legz the Tattoo Artist

Michael St. John Smith

Charles Bannister

Chris Britton

Jason Monroe

Wanda Cannon

Caroline Monroe

Chaka White

Pregnant Woman On Bus

Don Ackerman

Tattooed Man

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: DTS,Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: United States,Canada,Germany

Language: English

Summaries

Plot Summary

In this futuristic tale, Alan Hakman (Robin Williams) witnesses the death of his childhood friend who had fallen off a plank of wood in the abandoned building in which they were playing. Flash to the present, and chips called "Zoe" are inserted into the brain at birth and record a person's entire life; when the person dies, the video is edited and shown at the funeral. Video editor ("cutter") Alan Hakman edits the recordings of people's lives according to the wishes of the subject's family, interviewing the person's family members to get an idea of what to look for in the recordings. Of course, in the case of some unscrupulous people, the bad parts are left out, but the entire recording of a person's life is therefore subject to scrutiny. So, in some cases, Hakman was knowingly burying the bad and highlighting the good. As a result, Alan is turned into a cold megalomaniac, but things change when he stumbles across a subject's memory of his friend, who he thought was dead. In searching for a record of his friend's Zoe chip, he finds none, as only 20% of all people have the implants. What he does find is a record of his own implant, of which he was unaware. He goes about accessing the memory, which shows that Alan's friend was still breathing, and the "blood" Alan thought he remembered stepping in as he was leaving the building turned out to be paint. Meantime, the Zoe chip of his subject is destroyed during a confrontation in his office. Confronted by activists who want his subject's life opened to all, Alan attempts to flee because his memory chip recorded what he saw of the subject's life, but is shot and killed by the activist, who justifies his actions, hence Alan was not killed in vain. Mira Sorvino and James Caviezel also star.

Storyline

It's sometime in the near future. Largely on affordability, one in twenty people have Zoe implants inserted at birth, they manufactured by EYE Tech. The implants record what the host sees over his entire life. It is the job of a cutter to edit the footage post-mortem into a rememory for loved ones, it the official record of only the good, editing out for posterity the bad, the ugly and especially the very ugly. Ethically, cutters cannot combine footage from more than one implant for a rememory, cannot sell footage, and cannot have an implant himself. Alan Hakman is known to be the best cutter in the business in his seeming detachment from his subject matter, especially in needing to view that very ugly without judgment. He is arguably able to do so in being a loner, he having a cordial enough business relationship with fellow cutters, with his current girlfriend, Delila, the only other person in his life with some meaning to him. His work and that of his fellow cutters is getting more dangerous as a very vocal anti-implant movement is emerging in society, protesters picketing at high profile memorials where a rememory is shown. Alan's latest job is the very sensitive one of Charles Bannister, one of the first EYE Tech executives to have his rememory done. Two issues arise in the process of this job. First, Fletcher, an ex-cutter who long ago left the business for unspecified reasons, approaches Alan wanting either to take over the job or purchase the Bannister footage, Alan who believes it is to expose the technology for the ill that it has in society by exposing something related to Bannister himself, Fletcher who will go to extreme measures to get that footage. And second, Alan discovers someone from his far past in Bannister's footage, that very bad in Alan's life which he thought was buried long ago literally never to rise from the grave. — Huggo The story is set in a world where implanted microchips can record all moments of an individual's life. The chips are removed upon death so the images can be edited into something of a highlight reel for loved ones who want to remember the deceased. Caviezel portrays the leader of the organization that opposes this technology's development. — Bubba In a near undefined future, people may have a Zoe microchip implanted in their nervous system to permit their families to retrieve the best moments of their memories and watch on video after their deaths. This process is called "Rememory" and Alan H. Hakman (Robin Williams), a man traumatized by an incident in his childhood, is the best cutter of the Eye Tech Corporation. The company is facing groups that oppose to the "Rememory" and the ex-cutter Fletcher (Jim Caviezel) is leading these opponents. When Alan is assigned to prepare the final cut of the memories of the Eye Tech lawyer Charles Bannister, his Zoe chip is disputed by Fletcher. Meanwhile, Alan finds that he has also an implanted microchip, which is against the rules of a cutter. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Omar Naim's The Final Cut is startlingly different than a conventional science fiction film. It's a compelling fable that offers a vision of a world where memory implants record all moments of a person's life. Post mortem, these memories are removed and edited by a "Cutter" into a reel depicting the life of the departed for a commemorative ceremony, called a Rememory. Robin Williams' powerful portrayal of Alan Hakman, a troubled "cutter," propels this character driven story that forces us to question the power of our memories and the sanctity of our privacy. — Michael Umble

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