15, 93 mins
Code 46 is full of combustible elements but it never quite catches fire. The atmosphere reminds one of old-fashioned noir, and the plot is oddly conventional. Tim Robbins plays a supercop whose job is to root out undesirables in overcrowded cities and banish them to the desert. He is sent to investigate a high-level immigration fraud and ends up falling for the suspect.
Samantha Morton is the civil-service criminal Robbins is asked to finger. Morton instinctively trusts her nemesis, and Robbins responds like a confused robot. An “empathy virus”, taken in the form of a pill, enables him to read minds and discover her guilt. But her emotions provoke conflicting feelings. Will Robbins sacrifice his privilege, wife and kids for a tumbledown shack with Morton on the lonely and unregulated outside?
Unfortunately the couple are as romantically compatible as Little and Large. Far richer is the atmosphere of institutionalised paranoia. Winterbottom raises intriguing questions about identity. But ultimately the film is a thin triumph of liberal dreams over genetic codes and power-freaks.