Cypher (1997)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Cypher |
| Original title | Double tap |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1997 |
| length | 87 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Greg Yaitanes |
| script |
Erik Saltzgaber , Alfred Gough , Miles Millar |
| production |
Gilbert Adler , Richard Donner , Joel Silver |
| music | Moby |
| camera | John Peters |
| cut | Anthony Adler |
| occupation | |
| |
Cypher (Original title: Double Tap ) is an American thriller directed by Greg Yaitanes from 1997 .
action
The film is divided into a few minutes long parts, to which overlays with titles - such as the contract for the beginning of the film - are placed.
The FBI -Agentin Katherine determined together with their colleagues hidden from a scene of drug dealers . She pretends to be a money launderer , at the beginning of the film she negotiates with some men from Hong Kong. The men are killed by an unknown killer who shoots the leader twice in the head. He briefly keeps Katherine in his sights, but spares her. At the scene of the crime he leaves a hare's paw .
The drug boss Nash, for whom the killer works, learns that he did not shoot the "money launderer" Katherine. He wants to secure his business by killing the other drug lords. He puts a tail on Katherine to monitor her activities as well.
Katherine then learns from her colleagues that the unknown killer has already killed 50 people. However, he did not kill a police officer, only criminals. Katherine urges her colleagues to observe the home of a well-known drug dealer who is believed to be the killer's next victim. While observing, they see that someone is drilling a hole through the ceiling in the apartment below. The dealer is shot through this hole.
Through research, they then find out that the killer was unsuccessful with one of his victims in the past: Fischer. This man survived and is in prison. Katherine visits him and finds out that the killer is called "Cypher" and is a hit man who advertises in newspapers as "exterminator". Authorities have asked Katherine to trap Cypher.
Katherine finds the killer's newspaper ad and contacts Cypher. When they meet, he shows her that she is being shadowed by Nash's staff. Katherine tries to set Cypher as a killer on the decoy Fischer, and gives him an envelope with prepared information and photos of the target person, but Cypher initially refuses. Only when he later realizes in the photos that Fisher is the one he already wanted to kill once and that he is still alive does he want to do the job. Cypher contacts Katherine again and they meet again. They also get to know each other better personally.
Katherine's FBI colleagues wait in the house that Cypher was given as the whereabouts of the target Fischer. They want to set a trap for him, but have misjudged Cypher's course of action so that he can escape them. Cypher found out that the trap was set with Katherine's help.
He visits her in her apartment and confronts her. She has a gun on hand, but fails to shoot or arrest him. They discover their similarity and feel sympathy for one another. Suddenly, however, they are interrupted when the tailor appointed by drug dealer Nash storms in and shoots them. Together they manage to overpower him.
The drug lord Nash then hires another professional killer to liquidate Cypher.
Katherine and Cypher are hiding in Cypher's apartment where they meet. She finds out that Cypher used to be a cop. He had convicted a gang of drug dealers and was supposed to testify against them in court. But a week earlier, his wife and daughter were kidnapped and he was blackmailed. Cypher did not testify - despite this, the gang members murdered their wife and daughter out of revenge. As a result, he lost faith in people. One of the gang members was a fisherman.
Cypher goes out to kill Nash, Katherine returns to her FBI team. There the killer hired by Nash smuggled in as a high-ranking FBI agent, first killing Katherine's colleague and then bringing Katherine to Nash. The final battle takes place in his house, in which Nash is killed and Cypher injured. Finally, Katherine helps Cypher escape the authorities by identifying Nash's body as a Cypher.
background
The film was shot in Los Angeles . Its production amounted to an estimated 8 million US dollars .
Reviews
The Lexicon of International Films wrote that the film was a "prominent crime film" and recalled that the producers were also responsible for the Lethal Weapon films .
Elspeth Haughton wrote in the Apollo Movie Guide that the plot was "formulaic" and the dialogues were "lame". The “melodramatic” lighting, the editing and the “dreamy” soundtrack by Moby would give the film that certain something.
Web links
- Cypher in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Cypher. In: prisma.de. prisma-Verlag , accessed on October 1, 2017 .
- Cypher at rotten tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Filming locations for Double Tap , accessed July 10, 2007
- ↑ Box office / business for Double Tap , accessed July 10, 2007
- ↑ Cypher. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ^ Elspeth Haughton: Double Tap. In: apolloguide.com. Apollo Movie Guide, archived from the original ; accessed on October 1, 2017 (English).