Michael Clayton (2007)

Unstable Defense Attorney Edens Was A Threat to His U/North Agro-Chemical Company, and Was Killed (Made to Look Like a Suicide); U/North's Corrupt Counsel Karen Crowder Was Caught Offering 'Fixer' Michael Clayton Hush Money

In writer Tony Gilroy's directorial debut film, George Clooney was featured as the title character - Michael Clayton, a ruthless, high-powered former prosecutor turned troubled "fixer" corporate lawyer (or "special counsel") in New York for Kenner, Bach and Ledeen (headed by Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack)). The tagline said it all: "THE TRUTH CAN BE ADJUSTED."

His job was "janitor" - to clean up various problems and keep high-paying clients out of trouble, although he had problems of his own: a divorce, gambling addiction to poker, and a remaining debt of $75,000 (for a sour deal regarding a failed restaurant business) that he was struggling to pay off for his alcoholic brother Timmy Clayton (David Lansbury).

The film opened with issues involving the law firm's involvement in a multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit (that was about to be settled pre-trial) against their client, an agro-chemical company named U/North. The company was accused of using a cancer-causing pesticide, and there were additional problems with their unstable defense lawyer Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), a friend of Clayton's. Edens had been working on the U/North case for 6 years and suffered a breakdown during a deposition in the case in Milwaukee when he stopped taking his medications.

Then the plot revealed a failed attempt on Michael's life by a car-bombing. He had received a phone call to drive to Westchester, and as he inexplicably left his parked car in the countryside to view three beautiful horses on a hillside at dawn, he watched it explode from a distance.

The film then flashbacked to four days earlier and explained the circumstances of Clayton's predicament. Guilt-ridden Edens (who opened the film with a rambling, voice-over rant about his condition: "...I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life") was revealed to be planning to sabotage the pre-trial settlement of the lawsuit with U/North's ruthless chief in-house counsel Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), by distributing large numbers of red-bound copies of a confidential scientific report (Memorandum # 229). The report, from one of U-North's own internal research teams (and signed by CEO Don Jefferies (Ken Howard)), told about the hazardous effects of human exposure to the weed killer involved in the lawsuit.

Arthur had been persuaded to turn against U/North by one of the young plaintiffs in the case - a farm-girl named Anna (Merritt Wever), with whom he had became infatuated. To stifle Edens, Crowder hired henchmen to track and spy on Arthur's phone-calls and whereabouts - and then to kill him - by faking his suicidal death from an overdose (by injecting him between the toes). They also plotted to kill Michael with a car bomb, after he was suspicious that Arthur didn't leave a suicide note at the scene, and that Arthur was on his way to meet Anna at the airport on the same evening he died.

In the film's final scene, Karen Crowder calmly assured U/North executives at a board meeting about the settlement of the lawsuit, when she was surprised by a live confrontation with Michael Clayton - not dead from the car-bomb but quite alive. He blackmailed her, proposing that he could be bought off for $10 million to keep quiet:

"$10 million dollars, bank of my choosing, offshore, immediately!"

She agreed ("You have a deal"), but didn't realize that he had secretly broadcast their conversation about her offer of hush money. He then told her: "You're so f--ked" - after which he said: "Let me get a picture while I'm at it." He snapped her picture with his cellphone's camera and then identified himself: "I'm Shiva, the God of Death."

As she collapsed to the floor, she was arrested by Michael's NY police detective brother Raymond (Kevin Hagan), who had heard everything. The end credits played over Michael Clayton's $50 drive around town in a taxi ("Give me $50 dollars worth. Just drive"), viewed in a long-held shot.

Mighty Aphrodite (1995)

Lenny and Wife Amanda Adopted Linda's Child; Later, Linda Became Pregnant By Lenny and Raised the Child; When They Met Later, They Didn't Know That They Had Each Other's Child

The plot of this Woody Allen comedy-romance was based on the classic Greek myth of Pygmalion (the basis of George Bernard Shaw's play and My Fair Lady). It used the technique of a mask-wearing Greek chorus device (composed of F. Murray Abraham, Olympia Dukakis, David Ogden Stiers and Jack Warden) with characters who performed songs and dances to comment on the film's events.

Manhattan sportswriter Lenny Weinrib (Woody Allen) and his art-curator wife Amanda (Helena Bonham-Carter) adopted a bright boy named Max. Lenny was obsessed with finding Max's real parents, and after "breaking the law" in the Adoption Office by searching in sealed files, he discovered the son's tall, blonde mother was formally named Leslie Wright/Wailes/St. James, with the "fake name" of Linda Ash, who did "sex movies...skin flicks." Lenny was shocked to learn that she was a hooker and adult film star with the screen name of Judy Cum.

First Meeting with Linda Ash (Mira Sorvino) at Her NYC Apartment
Linda: "Hi, are you my 3 o'clock?"	Screen Name: "Judy Cum"	Linda: "I'm always attracted to losers."

He made a 3 pm appointment and met her at her apartment - she turned out to be a ditzy, foul-mouthed, high pitch-voiced, aspiring actress (Best Supporting Actress winner Mira Sorvino). She bragged about her adult film accomplishments, but added: "My real ambition is to be on Broadway in a musical. I sing." She told him that because he was married, he looked sexually-needy: "It's been a long time since you've had a great blow job," and that her fee was $200 paid up-front. When Lenny began to judge her lifestyle and hint ("You could have a husband and a child or something"), she thought he was becoming possessive ("You're telling me what to do"), and demanded that he leave immediately, with his money refunded.

When he met her again outside her apartment and invited her to lunch, she reluctantly agreed, and then she told him more about herself. Her biological father was a drug pusher, car thief, pickpocket, burglar, epileptic, and was accused of mail fraud, so she ran away from home at age 14. After her musician boyfriend Johnny committed suicide, she waited tables, worked in a massage parlor, did phone sex, prostituted herself, and participated in her first adult film titled "Snatch Happy." She had never married ("They're all assholes") and she came from a family of "slugs and lowlifes" ("I'm the only one with any ambition"), but probably inherited her intelligence from her father's brother. She said: "I did have a child once," but then dropped the subject.

After attending the horse races with Lenny, they departed, although in their next rendezvous, she finally told him what he wanted to know:

I had a kid, Lenny, and I gave him up for adoption. It's the sorriest thing I ever did in my entire life. There's not a day that doesn't go by that I don't wake up thinking about him. Now some lucky family has him. I just hope to God that they're taking good care of him.

She explained to Lenny why she gave up the boy, who was illegitimately conceived, due to a broken condom:

I was all confused. I had no dough. I-I-- I didn't know what to do. I-- I didn't even know who the father was. It could've been any one of a hundred guys. Welcome to planet Earth, thanks to a broken condom.

Meanwhile, Amanda had an affair with her work colleague Jerry Bender (Peter Weller) - partially due to Lenny's all-consuming obsession with Linda (Amanda: "Things have changed between us"), and she moved out to explore their relationship. When Lenny found out, he was consoled by Linda and they had sex together.

Later in the film, Tiresias (Jack Warden), the blind seer of Thebes, described the consequences. Linda became pregnant, but she never told Lenny. Conversely and ironically, Linda ended up with Lenny's child:

Lenny and Linda did make love that night like he was Zeus and she was Aphrodite with an aphrodisiac...The point is Linda did that night conceive a child...She became pregnant with Lenny's child, but not wanting to complicate his life with Amanda, she never told him. lnstead she went off with her new husband who stood behind her loyally as she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Lenny never saw Linda again.

Soon after, Amanda confessed she wasn't in love with Jerry and reconciled with Lenny.

By the film's happily-ever-after "smile" ending in a postscript a few years later, Lenny and Linda accidentally met in a toy store. Linda had left her hooker business and exchanged it for a normal suburban life, working as a hairdresser, with marriage to helicopter pilot Don. She was raising Lenny's fathered child as her own, and Lenny was continuing to raise her child Max. Each had the other's child - without each other's knowledge:

Greek Chorus Leader (F. Murray Abraham): But they have each other's child. And they don't know.
Greek Chorus: Yes. Yes. Isn't life ironic?
Leader: Life is unbelievable. Miraculous. Sad. Wonderful.
Greek Chorus: Yes, this is all true! And that's why we say. ("When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles with You)")

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Mildred Was Accused of Killing Her Second Husband Monte Beragon - The Real Murderer Was Mildred's Promiscuous Daughter Veda

This melodramatic, film-noirish murder mystery opened with the killing of thin-mustached Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) in his shadowy, dark beach house at night. A gun was heard being fired six times in rhythmic tempo as the victim muttered the film's first word: "Mildred!"

The murderer was unseen - a missing action shot in the film that was not revealed until the very end.

At the police station, at the end of a second lengthy flashback, prime suspect Mildred Pierce-Beragon (Joan Crawford) confessed to Inspector Peterson (Moroni Olsen) that she was the one who had murdered her second husband - Monte Beragon: "I went to the house. Monte was alone. And I killed him." Peterson didn't believe Mildred, and thought she was only taking the blame. At that moment, the door to the office opened, and two detectives brought in Mildred's daughter Veda (Ann Blyth) - she had been picked up at the airport on a plane bound for Arizona. Peterson began to viciously question Veda, prompting her to incriminate herself and confess to the killing.

In the film's third and final flashback to what had actually happened with Mildred, Veda and Monte at the beach house, Mildred was seen walking forward out of the shadows. She came upon Monte kissing Veda over the bar in the darkness. Monte sheepishly spoke: "We weren't expecting you, Mildred, uh, obviously." Veda then bluntly confessed that she was having a long-term, surreptitious affair with her own mother's husband:

It's just as well you know. I'm glad you know...Since I came home, and even before. He never loved you. It's always been me. I've got what I wanted. Monte's going to divorce you and marry me...And there's nothing you can do about it.

Mildred's Discovery of Veda's Affair with Mildred's Husband Monte

Although Mildred pulled a gun from her coat pocket, she dropped it to the floor when Monte grabbed her arm and cautioned her ("Mildred, use your head"). Then after Mildred fled, Monte rebuffed and scorned Veda:

Just where did you get the idea I'm going to marry you?... If you think I'm going to marry you, you're very much mistaken....Look. You don't really think I could be in love with a rotten little tramp like you, do you?

Veda became enraged when Monte denied her request to get married (he denied loving her and claimed he must have been drunk), and when he called her a promiscuous "rotten little tramp." Outside, Mildred heard six shots - and when she came back inside, she found her crazed, impassioned daughter standing over the dead body of Monte, and claiming:

He's dead. He said horrible things. He didn't want me around anymore. He told me to get out. And then he laughed at me. He wouldn't stop laughing. I told him I'd kill him. He said I didn't have guts enough. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to, I tell you. But the gun kept going off, over and over again. Then he was lying there, looking at me, just looking at me. You've got to help me. Give me money to get away - and time. I've got to get away before they find him.

Mildred finally told Veda: "I can't get you out of this," although Veda was desperately pleading with her mother to be sympathetic and help her ("Give me another chance. It's your fault as much as mine. You've got to help me. Help me, Mother!"). Mildred phoned the Santa Monica police department to report the murder, but then hung up.

The film returned to the present, where Mildred was admitting to Peterson: "I thought maybe, in a way, it was my fault. So I tried to help her. I wanted to take the blame for it." Mildred looked on as Veda was about to be booked and led away by an officer, as Peterson spoke: "Not this time, Mrs. Beragon. This time, your daughter pays for her own mistake. OK, book her!" Veda and Mildred hugged and spoke one last time:

Mildred: Darling, l'm sorry. l did the best l could.
Veda: Don't worry about me, Mother. l'll get by.

Mildred was released after Peterson mused: "You know, Mrs. Beragon, there are times when l regret being a policeman." In the hallway as Mildred exited to get some "fresh air", estranged husband Bert Pierce (Bruce Bennett) was waiting for her, and they walked into the approaching dawn. Now that Veda had been purged and could no longer poison their relationship, they were restored to each other.

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Boxer Maggie, After A Severe Injury During a Championship Bout, Became a Paraplegic; Her Trainer Frankie Euthanized Her

Director/star Clint Eastwood's Best Picture-winning (melo-) dramatic sports film told about 31 year-old Ozark white trash waitress Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank). She was trained to become a boxer by the reluctant gym owner of LA's The Hit Pit Frankie Dunn (director Clint Eastwood), who was estranged from his own daughter Katy.

She was winning a welterweight championship title bout in Las Vegas when she was sabotaged by foul play. Her East German opponent Billie the Blue Bear (real-life boxer Lucia Rijker) struck her with an illegal blow on the left side of her face when the referee wasn't looking. The dirty punch sent her into a red corner stool and broke her neck. She was left with a spinal neck injury that made her a quadriplegic. She was bedridden and had to have a leg amputated due to muscle atrophy and bed sores.

In the film's conclusion - one that contained a controversial and dramatic ending, Frankie knew that she wanted to die (she had tried killing herself by biting her tongue and bleeding to death), and wished that he would assist in her euthanasia. She asked a "favor" from her weathered and beaten-down trainer Frankie who was faithfully at her bedside - to be euthanized:

I can't be like this, Frankie. Not after what I've done. I've seen the world. People chanted my name. Well, not my name, some damn name you gave me. But they were chantin' for me. I was in magazines. You think I ever dreamed that'd happen? I was born two pounds, one-and-a-half ounces. Daddy used to tell me I'd fight to get into this world, and I'd fight my way out. That's all I wanna do, Frankie. I just don't wanna fight you to do it. I got what I needed. I got it all. Don't let 'em keep taking it away from me. Don't let me lie here 'til I can't hear those people chantin' no more.

He initially told her, "I can't. Please. Please don't ask me...I can't." Then, after having reflected deeply over the issue of her mercy-killing, and having prayed and sought advice from Catholic priest Father Horvak (Brian F. O'Byrne), he then decided to assist in Maggie's suicide. In the dark, emotionally-wrenching and controversial ending of the film, however, he finally honored her request one evening.

The irascible but caring trainer Frankie entered her room and told her the meaning of the Gaelic phrase on her green fight robe: "Mo chuisle" ("Pulse of my heart" or "My pulse") that cheering crowds had chanted. After kissing her, he turned off her life-support breathing machine, removed her breathing tube and injected her with a fatal dose of adrenaline to cause her instant death. Afterwards, Frankie's silhouette exited from the hospital - and from boxing altogether.

The entire film was a 'narrated' letter Frank's friend, colleague and ex-boxer Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris (Morgan Freeman) - the film's narrator - was writing to Frankie's estranged daughter about her father's character.

Mindhunters (2004)

The Serial Killer in the Group was Psychopathic Lucas, Who Admitted Killing His Parents When He Was 10 Years Old and Developed a Desire to Kill; As a Personal Challenge, He Had Orchestrated Rube-Goldberg Style Death Traps For All the Other FBI Profilers ("Worthy Prey") on the Island

Director Renny Harlin's long-delayed mystery thriller was thoroughly described in the film's tagline:

"For an elite team of FBI profilers, hunting a serial killer is a process of elimination. Their own."

Seven young FBI students were to be trained as profilers during weekend practice exercises with their teacher off the coast of North Carolina on the small island of Oneiga (a deserted US Navy Training Facility) 50 miles offshore. Their goal was to use their brains (Mindhunters) to search for a mock serial killer suspect known as the Puppeteer. Arrogant and egocentric Jake Harris (Val Kilmer), the instructor, had devised a "sick, twisted crime scenario" or simulation for the group.

The preposterous film's premise, being stranded and picked off one-by-one, was similar to other who-dun-its including Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (1945) and Ten Little Indians.

A major clue to the killer's modus operandi was provided by the title of the movie playing on the Majestic Theatre's marquee: The Third Man (1949) - it referenced Orson Welles' line about "the cuckoo clock." It also hinted that the killer was not a third party, but one of the group members. A character named Gabe gave a slangy summary of the film:

"Eeny, meeny, miney, mo. Who's the next motherf--ker to go?"

The participants in the weekend training, each of whom had a specific fear, habit, hang-up, trait (skill or weakness) that would be exploited by the profiling killer, were:

• Gabe Jenson (LL Cool J, listed as James Todd Smith), former Navy SEAL and current Philadelphia PD detective and resident profiler; an observer suspiciously considered an outsider by the others, although sent to investigate Harris' extreme training methods
• J.D. Reston (Christian Slater), the team leader always "out front" yet worried about his abilities
• Vince Sherman (Clifton Collins Jr.), an ex-cop, confined to a wheel-chair and illegally carrying a gun ("My gun goes where I go")
• Rafe Perry (Will Kemp), British investigator; addicted to coffee
• Bobby Whitman (Eion Bailey), Rubik's Cube master, smart (a "Mr. Fix-It") although insecure regarding his own intelligence
• Nicole Willis (Patricia Velasquez), sexy Latina girlfriend of J.D., craved cigarettes although trying to quit
• Sara Moore (Kathryn Morris), fearful of water and guilt-ridden over sister's drowning (and rape) death
• Lucas Harper (Jonny Lee Miller), lost both parents as a 10 year-old kid in a "freak thing," grew up "livin' real hard" and admitted he was still confronting his personal demons; he claimed he was "fearless" although he wasn't; he resented Sara's lack of romantic interest in him; obsessed with time and wanted the challenging thrill of setting up elaborate death traps for fellow FBI profilers

The first morning (Saturday), a dead cat was found hanging with a watch stopped at 10 am in its mouth - a possible warning sign of the time of the next life-threatening incident or killing. Elaborately-staged Rube Goldberg-style death traps began to eliminate each of them according to a time-frame devised by the killer (signaled by timepiece clues left at each death scene): "With each new killing comes a resetting of the clock." After the first death, the group began to suspect each other (especially Gabe, then Sara, and even Jake).

When everyone passed out from drugged coffee at 12 noon, the killer set up the rest of the surprise traps. Letters (with phosphorescent powder) inscribed on the back of their jackets spelled Croatoan -- "like the island, the colony...one of the first sites settled by the Europeans in the New World" - the island was the ill-fated, lost colony location (the name was carved on a tree) where over 100 original settlers vanished in the late 1500s.

Killings (the serial killer was never seen directly killing anyone) were conducted in various gruesome ways, at set times:

• J.D. - (at 10 am, Sat.) his legs were frozen with liquid-nitrogen sprayed from a tank; his body broke into smashed-up fragments
• Rafe - (discovered at 5:40 pm, Sat.) he suffered a severed neck, decapitated and bled out (with the head still intact on the neck stem)
• Bobby - (just after 6:00 pm, Sat.) he was harpooned in chest and neck by three sharp rods, after turning off a broken water pipe
• Nicole - (at 8:00 pm, Sat.) she was acid-poisoned by a laced cigarette that burned her insides
• Jake and two other FBI agents (on Friday at 10:30 pm, discovered much later) had secretly stayed behind to watch the exercise - he was strung up like a marionette
• Vince - (at 8:45 pm, Sat.) his mis-firing gun backfired with shrapnel
• Lucas - (at 10:10 pm, Sat.) was identified as the serial killer by powder on his hand from resetting a clock (Sara's trap), although presumably shot to death at first (he was saved by his bullet-proof vest); he had murdered his parents when he was young; Sara shot him in the neck during an underwater pool struggle and also shot him in the forehead on the deck and killed him; Gabe commented: "I guess we found out his weakness. Bullets."

Gabe and Sara, the two survivors, awaited a rescue helicopter the next morning. Gabe quizzed Sara as a potential profiler when he asked her: "One last question: When's the situation secure, Agent?" Sara responded: "On the drive home" - something that she had learned in the opening training sequence.

Minority Report (2002)

Pre-crime Law Enforcement Program Boss Lamar Burgess Cleverly Murdered Anne Lively - the Mother of Pre-Cog Daughter Agatha; Pre-Crime Cop John Anderton Was Set Up and Framed for the Murders of Two People: Leo Crow and Detective Witwer, and Was Caught and Imprisoned; Anderton Escaped Confinement and Exposed Burgess for the Lively Murder, and Burgess Committed Suicide; The Law Enforcement Experiment Was Shut Down --- Was the Film's 'Happy' Resolution Only a Wish Fulfillment Dream By Imprisoned Anderton?

The setting of this sci-fi action film and mystery-thriller, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, was Washington, DC. It was the dystopic year of 2054, and crime had been nearly eliminated. A futuristic, elite law enforcement organization or department known as "Pre-Crime", was headed by Lamar Burgess (Max Von Sydow). The department used three psychic humans known as Pre-Cogs lying in flotation tanks - they had special group-mind powers that were able to forecast and envision future crimes before they occurred. The senior Pre-Cog was a fragile girl named Agatha (Samantha Morton), who would sometimes produce secondary, secret "minority reports" with conflicting, pre-visualized cognitions from the other two Pre-Cogs.

One of the main Pre-Crime cops was Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise), who was surprised one day after learning that the Pre-Cogs had predicted that he would commit a murder himself in the next 36 hours - of a man named Leo Crow, someone that he did not know. The murder, which used Anderton's gun, was blamed on Anderton, although Crow had previously arranged to have himself killed, for financial gain. Set up and framed, Anderton went on the run as a fugitive (with a kidnapped Agatha), while being pursued by dedicated federal oversight Justice Department agent-detective Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) and other Pre-crime officers. To find justice for himself, Anderton kidnapped and removed Agatha from the flotation tank to effectively shut down the entire Pre-Crime department during her absence.

In the conclusion of the film, Anderton was able to publically expose Burgess as the murderer of Anne Lively (Jessica Harper) - the mother of Agatha. He had killed Lively by luring her to a lake with the promise of seeing her daughter. To deceive the Pre-Cogs, Burgess orchestrated two murders. The first killer was apprehended, as expected, but then Burgess carried through with the crime, without being caught. He knew that the second murder would appear as a technical 'echo' and would be ignored and discarded. He thought that his deceptive scheme would work, and the Pre-cogs' report that he was the murderer was permanently erased.

Exposed As a "Murderer" at the Dinner	Anne Lively Lured to the Lake	The Murderer Was Apprehended by Pre-crime, Haloed, and Taken Away
Burgess Then Arrived at the Lake, With an Overcoat and Black Gloves	He Distractedly Pointed Anne Forward, While He Backed Off and Reversed His Coat	During Agatha's Pre-Vision, She Cried Out: "Run!"
		Burgess Murdered Anne by Drowning
Burgess Donned a Black Mask and Goggles

Burgess' motive for the killing was that Anne, who had conquered her drug habit (which had originally compelled her to sell Agatha to Pre-Crime), had now wanted to remove her daughter from the Pre-Crime flotation tanks. Threatened by the thought, Burgess wanted to prevent the shut-down of his sinister law enforcement program. Burgess had already murdered Witwer (using Anderton's gun retrieved from the Crow crime scene) when he began to acquire too much knowledge about Burgess' corrupt involvement. After being doubly-framed, Anderton was charged with two murders, eventually caught, and imprisoned in Pre-crime's Containment Department.

Guilty of Lively's murderer, Burgess mistakenly revealed too much to Anderton's estranged ex-wife Lara (Kathryn Morris). He told her that Anne Lively had died by drowning - something that he shouldn't have known if he had no knowledge of her death as he claimed earlier.

After Anderton escaped from the prison (with Lara's aid), he was able to have Pre-Crime broadcast (to a large celebratory DC hotel banquet with Burgess in attendance) a narrated recording of Agatha's pre-vision of Burgess (in a secondary "minority report"), in the act of murdering Anne Lively by drowning:

And then when you were all alone, you killed her yourself in the same way the Precogs predicted your John Doe would kill her. You made the real murder look like an 'echo', knowing the tech would do as he was trained to do, disregard it. Anne Lively became just another missing person.

Anderton then asked: "So, what are you gonna do, Lamar? What are you gonna do?" Anderton presented Burgess with a dilemma and difficult choice - to murder or not murder him:

• If you don't kill me, Pre-Cogs were wrong, and Pre-Crime is over.
  [Pre-Crime would be discredited, considered flawed, and shut down]
• If you do kill me, you go away, but it proves the system works. The Pre-Cogs were right.
  [Burgess would be arrested, spend life in prison, and Pre-Crime would be validated]

Burgess responded: "Yes, I have a choice, and I made it. Forgive me, John. Forgive me." A gunshot sounded. Had he killed Anderton? The duplicitous crime boss had committed suicide by shooting himself - with his final apologetic words: "Forgive me, my boy."

The film ended with Anderton's voice-over about the demise of the 'experiment':

In 2054, the six-year Pre-crime experiment was abandoned. All prisoners were unconditionally pardoned and released, although police departments kept watch on many of them for years to come. Agatha and the twins were transferred to an undisclosed location - a place where they could find relief from their gifts. A place where they could live out their lives in peace.

Anderton and his ex-wife Lara were reunited and she was expecting.

Another twist in the film was possible, however -- the earlier line of dialogue by prison guard Gideon (Tim Blake Nelson) to imprisoned cop Anderton hinted that the final favorable resolution of events in the film was just a dream and wish-fulfillment on Anderton's part, or that the entire film had been Anderton's dream:

They say you have visions, that your life flashes before your eyes, that all your dreams come true.