Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		2.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Enigma Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 19, 2020

The peculiarities of Russian orthography and the Cyrillic alphabet have led to some memorable key art for films like The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming , where trivia fans will know the “R” in Russians is reversed, a la Cyrillic, and the “G” in “Coming” is transformed into a hammer and sickle. It might be just one indication of a certain derivative quality that runs through Enigma that it copies that same conceit with regard to the “G” in its title, though this film is obviously not a raucous comedy about a perceived Soviet invasion of the United States. Instead, Martin Sheen portrays an East German dissident named Alex Holbeck who is kind of strangely recruited by the CIA in order to steal an artifact from the World War II era, or least its 1982 updated version — an Enigma code descrambling machine, which the CIA has deemed necessary to prevent a huge assassination plot in the Soviet Union.

There’s a kind of unstated illogic to the underpinnings of Enigma from virtually the get go, though the screenplay by John Briley (adapting a source novel by Michael Barak) does attempt to intermittently explain things, and that’s the fact that one might think that Americans could rather easily get an Enigma code machine (or its modern day equivalent) by asking for one from their actual allies who invented it — the British. That passing issue aside, the bulk of Enigma plays out in a quasi-Hitchcockian manner with Holbeck finding out rather quickly he’s been betrayed by the CIA (they already have an Enigma machine, and are using Holbeck as a kind of decoy), and that he’s pretty much on his own in East Berlin, surrounded by a coterie of East German agents and, just to make things even trickier, KGB types, including Dimitri Vasilikov (Sam Neill), who is spearheading the hunt for Holbeck.

Holbeck relies on the allure of former girlfriend Karen Reinhardt (Brigitte Fossey), who predictably also has a relationship with Vasilikov, to help him get to “mission accomplished” status, but the entire film turns out to be a shaggy dog story of sorts, with a climax that just kind of states, “nothing to see here, just move along”. The film has some interesting performances and a couple of moments of angst, but it never generates any real suspense, since the cat is out of the bag fairly early about the whole “McGuffin” (to use a Hitchcockian term) aspect of the Enigma machine, something that makes Holbeck's whole journey kind of an exercise in pointlessness.

Enigma Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Enigma is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Marquee Collection, an imprint of MVD Visual, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a pretty dated and at times rough looking presentation. There's considerable wobble during the opening credits, which may indicate a lack of restoration, and the grain field is often very gritty, to the point that it looks downright noisy at times. A lot of the transfer seems curiously skewed toward blues and purples, so that things like flesh tones can look pretty unnatural. Things get a good deal warmer after about the 30 minute mark, but even there there are some oddly "cool" blue looking undertones to the palette. Occasional minor age related wear and tear like dirt and white flecks are also apparent. In decent lighting conditions, detail levels are at least passable, and in some close-ups, rather good. Blacks can be downright milky at times, as in a late scene inside a darkened car, where an almost hazy white overlays the sequence. The film does have an unusually high amount of opticals due to printed explanatory titles identifying locales and times that occur frequently, and that might be a contributing factor to some of the rough looking quality of this transfer.

Enigma Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This is another release that disappointingly only includes a lossy Dolby 2.0 mono track. Within that context, everything here is listenable, but lacking considerable energy, especially in the midrange and low end. Dialogue and an at times effective score both are presented without any inherent damage or distortion. Optional English subtitles are available.

Enigma Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Photo Gallery (1080p; 1:04)


• Actor Biographies (1080p; 00:59) offers text bios of both Sheen and Neill. As can probably be surmised from the timing, this is authored to advance automatically from Sheen to Neill at around the 30 second mark.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:02) is ostensibly in high definition, but looks upscaled from an old videotape.

Enigma Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Enigma tries to work up both suspense and romance, but it never really manages to do either, let alone both. Performances are generally winning, and the film does have a notable cast that also includes Derek Jacobi, so those hard pressed for a time killer during this era of quarantine may find this an acceptable enough diversion, but technical merits might be deemed to need improvement even by diehard fans of the cast.