Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.
Direction
John Woo's dove obsession meets sci-fi corporate thriller
Cinematography
That motorcycle chase through the lab is unhinged
Production
The envelope of random objects as narrative device
Director
John Woo
Ben Affleck
Michael Jennings
Aaron Eckhart
James Rethrick
Uma Thurman
Rachel Porter
Paul Giamatti
Shorty
Colm Feore
John Wolfe
Joe Morton
Agent Dodge
Michael C. Hall
Agent Klein
Peter Friedman
Attorney General Brown
Kathryn Morris
Rita Dunne
Ivana Miličević
Maya-Rachel
Christopher Kennedy
Stevens
Fulvio Cecere
Agent Fuman
John Cassini
Agent Mitchell
Callum Keith Rennie
Jude
Michelle Harrison
Jane
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Philip K. Dick's original 1953 short story had no action sequences—John Woo added the motorcycle chase and bullet ballets himself.
The envelope items (bus ticket, paperclip, etc.) were designed as a puzzle for audiences to solve alongside Affleck, making viewers complicit in his fractured memory.
US
