A Masterpiece!

A lot of fun.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is based on a novel - not a true story about Betchley and the Enigma machines. For that watch the Imitation Game. The story is convoluted and absurd. By the time things come together the viewer who cares what happens. Kate Winslet was quite plump here and kudos to her for playing the unattractive one. Saffron Burrows looks quite pretty. Dougray Scott acts tormented well. The supporting cast are all good but this silly story is just not worth watching

German military messages enciphered on the Enigma machine were first broken by the Polish Cipher Bureau, beginning in December 1932. This success was a result of efforts by three Polish cryptologist's, Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, working for Polish military intelligence. Rejewski reverse-engineered the device, using theoretical mathematics and material supplied by French military intelligence. Subsequently the three mathematicians designed mechanical devices for breaking Enigma ciphers, including the cryptologic bomb. From 1938 onwards, additional complexity was repeatedly added to the Enigma machines, making decryption more difficult and requiring further equipment and personnel—more than the Poles could readily produce.On 26 and 27 July 1939,[3] in Pyry near Warsaw, the Poles initiated French and British military intelligence representatives into their Enigma-decryption techniques and equipment, including Zygalski sheets and the cryptologic bomb, and promised each delegation a Polish-reconstructed Enigma. The demonstration represented a vital basis for the later British continuation and effort.[4] During the war, British cryptologists decrypted a vast number of messages enciphered on Enigma. The intelligence gleaned from this source, codenamed "Ultra" by the British, was a substantial aid to the Allied war effort.Marian Rejewski was responsible for the initial analysis that enabled exploitation of the German ENIGMA cryptographic machine. Without his breakthroughs, which he provided to the French and British in 1939, the U.K. and U.S. may have never been able to exploit ENIGMA. Mr. Rejewski's genius was that he recognized traditional attacks as useless against ENIGMA. He became the first to employ a higher-algebraic attack against any cryptographic system. His insight produced a solution that had evaded his French and British peers for a decade, and thanks to his contributions, ENIGMA-derived intelligence enabled U.S. and British efforts to defeat Germany.

Enigma is not for the war buffs who want historical accuracy. Although the historical setting at the headquarters for code breaking during world war 2 is solid enough the characters we meet are fictional.The main character Thomas Jericho clearly has some connections to Alan Turing, but the differences are equally apparent to those who know the historical accounts, so anyone searching for a story about Turing should look elsewhere.If you can let go of this there is a good spy story to be had. Kate Winslet, Saffron Burrows and Dougray Scott are all excellent in the leading roles, but the supporting cast is equally good. Jeremy Northam's spy master is one of many highly entertaining portrayals.The intertwined stories along the way are perhaps more captivating than the main plot, but the ride we are taken on is well worth it.

Enigma is a decent little WWII movie that tries to blend historic and fictional drama. There are moments when both the real and the pretend are quite thrilling, but they end up detracting from each other so much the film is left flatfooted at its conclusion. Based on a novel by Richard Harris, too many essential details of the book are awkwardly crammed in during the last half hour. Watching Enigma is like taking an enjoyable car ride but then realizing you're late and rushing the final few miles to your destination.The historical aspect of the tale concerns the small group of British geniuses enlisted to crack the Nazi's infamous Enigma code. As the movie begins, the Germans have changed the code and left the British completely in the dark just as three huge supply convoys set out from the U.S. to Britain. The codebreakers have 4 days to crack Enigma to prevent U-boats from destroying one or all of those convoys.The fictional element of the story is Thomas Jericho (Dougray Scott), the leading genius among the codebreakers who's returned to work after a stint in an asylum. The intense but halting Jericho fell in love with the beautiful and mysterious Claire (Saffron Burrows), who drove him to a nervous breakdown when she sought out and then spurned his advances. Jericho is still obsessed with Claire, but finds she's disappeared without a trace or explanation. In his efforts to discover what happens to Clarie, Jericho is ably assisted by the almost irresistibly cute and spunky Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), a secretary at the codebreakers' military base. Jericho is also confounded and harassed by Wigram (Jeremy Northram), a smilingly hard British intelligence agent who has multiple agendas.Both parts of Enigma are fairly good on their own merits, though the struggle to solve the Nazi code and win the war is understandably more compelling than the mystery of a missing woman, no matter how involved it may be. The difficulty is that by splitting its attention, the movie is never able to fully commit to either piece of itself. Though Enigma admirably tries to weave the two together and have them mirror each other, the on screen time spent with each dilemma inevitably gives short shrift to the other. As a viewer, you want to spend more time with the codebreakers AND you want to spend more time with the slowing budding romance of Jericho and Hester AND you want to spend more time on the conflicts between the intellectual men of science and the practical men of war AND you want to spend more time with the subtly blunt confrontations of Jericho and Wigram AND you want to spend more time with Jericho's memories of Claire. This is a case where you're left wanting more, but it's not a pleasant sensation.And as Enigma winds to a finish and the story starts throwing new things at you to set up and explain its big ending, it confirms the imbalance you've been feeling is the real product of a script that needed some things cut out and other things expanded to take their place.While legitimate, that complaint should not distract from the reality that this is a pretty good and entertaining production. It's well acted, well directed and the individual scenes are well written. While not a modern classic of the WWI genre, it's well worth it to spend a couple hours wrapped up in this Enigma.