Kam Williams

The Imitation Game: Biopic Chronicles Exploits of Cryptologists Who Cracked the Nazi Code

EUREKA, WE’VE DONE IT: The team at Bletchley Park, led by Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch, seated center) has successfully broken the encrypted radio transmissions of the Nazi military. Unbeknownst to the Germans, the team possessed one of the Enigma machines, which the Germans were using to encrypt their radio messages. Turing, a brilliant mathematician, was able to lead the team shown surrounding him to devise an electric powered machine that was able to decipher the code. They are shown here entering their machine’s results into the Enigma machine and receiving the unencrypted output.
EUREKA, WE’VE DONE IT: The team at Bletchley Park, led by Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch, seated center) has successfully broken the encrypted radio transmissions of the Nazi military. Unbeknownst to the Germans, the team possessed one of the Enigma machines, which the Germans were using to encrypt their radio messages. Turing, a brilliant mathematician, was able to lead the team shown surrounding him to devise an electric powered machine that was able to decipher the code. They are shown here entering their machine’s results into the Enigma machine and receiving the unencrypted output.

At the outset of World War II, the Nazis gained an early advantage with the help of its Enigma, the encrypting machine which enabled the German military to communicate without having to worry about their radio messages being understood. In response, Winston Churchill authorized the eccentric math genius Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to work with a team whose mission was to unscramble the Enigma’s encrypted codes.

Operating on the campus of a cypher school located in Buckinghamshire’s Bletchley Park, Turing’s team embarked upon a race against time to break the Enigma’s code that was equally as important as the fighting on the battlefield. And when they did manage to decipher the German communications, they understood that it was just as important to keep that fact a secret.

They realized that their information gave the Allies on the front lines an advantage that would be lost overnight if the Nazis changed the settings on their Enigma  machine. Fortunately, they were able to keep their secret safe from the enemy.

The British government credited Turing’s team with saving millions of lives and shortening the conflict in the European theater by a couple years. That important achievement is the subject of The Imitation Game, a bittersweet biopic directed by Norwegian Morten Tyldum (Headhunters).

Nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture, Director, Lead Actor (Cumberbatch), and Supporting Actress (Keira Knightley), the film is based on Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges’s biography of the unsung hero. Unfortunately, because of the secrecy of their work, and despite the pivotal role he had played, Turing contributions were never really recognized by the public. Instead, after the war he was arrested, convicted, and chemically castrated because he was gay (which was illegal in Britain at the time), which caused him to commit suicide.

The movie is a well crafted character study that just might earn Benedict Cumberbatch an Oscar.

Excellent (****). Rated PG-13 for sexual references, mature themes, and smoking. Running time: 114 minutes. Distributor: The Weinstein Company.

Written by: Kam Williams