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Maybe you need to knock back a couple of Colt 45s to appreciate Michael Winterbottom’s Code 46, or maybe a shot of a "Coherence Virus" would help. The film’s dystopic future offers "viruses" — biotechnical aids — for every other mood, psychological need, cognitive requirement, or plot development, so why not one for simple clarity? But who knows what the side effects might be? William (Tim Robbins), an investigator into forged and stolen "papelles," the passports and identity cards of the future, takes an "empathy virus" to help him with his work. The suspect says one thing about himself or herself and William intuits the person’s whole life story. On the other hand, he might also fall in love, as he does with Maria (Samantha Morton), the case he is currently working on in a Blade Runner–like polyglot Shanghai. Or does he fall in love because they share the same DNA from some unknown previous genetic hanky-panky? If so, they are in violation of Code 46, the anti-incest law of this mulligan stew of a future. Winterbottom takes cues from that ancient detective Oedipus (the all-powerful corporation here is Sphinx), and he blurs cultures, landscapes, and languages into a surreal, sometimes beautiful, and often confusing brave new world. But Sophocles got it right when he relied on fate rather than viruses. (93 minutes)
BY PETER KEOUGH
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