There is one movie that haunts me to this day. I forget what it is called, but it is a Norse Myth or Saga put to film. A particularly cruel and clever Psychologist played it for us once on VHS. It was a circuitous and crazy plot that involved Rapunzelian romance mixed with Herculean feats replete… and I think there was a hag…lybranthine, confusing (I really can’t remember through the mists of Ragnarok). It was a very dark movie, as if Bergman had done a modern Viking movie. The plot was literally incomprehensible. Has anyone seen it? I’d like to know what it was called. The movie was probably made late eighties, early nineties. It was a newer film, Scandanavian production. Musta been 3 or 4 hours long…
A belated thanks to Gaderene and Campion for the Brick links. Fascinating stuff.
Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum- great flick, labyrinthine plot.
Ditto any Raymond Chandler type noir- Murder My Sweet, Farewell My Lovely, etc.
Much below the above two in quality, Ditto all Mamet plots, epsecially those that revolve around people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a con that falls apart if the “mark” looks at his watch before he takes a sip of his Drambouie, or whatever the hell goes on in those epics of his.
I came here to mention The Spanish Prisoner. The twist is so subtle, it took me a whole day to realize I had been suckered. Mamet doesn’t dumb anything down for anybody.
I get what they were about. I just don’t like them.
Once you get to the end of *The Usual Suspects * I think you an realise what the plot was all about. But then when you start thinking about it the last twist makes it all nonsense.
How about Last Year at Marienbad?
Each to their own. 
Not really.
The last twist reveals that Kevin Spacey’s character has woven an elaborate tapestry of bullshit that ensnares the cops and allows him to escape. Anything that happens in flashbacks, which is the majority of the movie, is unreliable.
If ever I master spoilers I’ll answer
Illuminatiprimus:
He engineered the plot by inducing the victim to get himself shot by Anderton even if Anderton didn’t really want to do it. It was a promise to provide for the guy’s kids, I think, and the victim himself couldn’t do that, at least not very well. So yes, the effect generated the cause - both Anderton and the DOJ guy looking at the pre-crime program realized this - but the effect was ensured by the guy’s promise to get himself killed by Anderton no matter what.
End the text with [/spoiler] and start it with [spoiler]. Hit preview before you submit.
Regarding the general concept of Minority Report
Sending information backward through time, which is in effect what the precogs did by “seeing” the future, is sufficient to result in a causality paradox, or a closed causal loop, which is really what Minority Report depicts.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Layer Cake, which is a very good film with a plot that definitely requires one’s full attention.
Regarding Brick - which I loved - I highly recommend watching it with the English subtitles on. There’s so little dialogue that even subtitle haters don’t usually mind, and the movie’s a lot more enjoyable when the words aren’t muffled.
Sturmhauke, thanks for the help, but even with your tips I can’t get it to work. Maybe I m missing spaces somewhere- probably between my ears.
Possibly you’re adding spaces, specifically between the [brackets]. Make sure there aren’t any.