Enigma (1982) from Tuna and Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Two thumbs up for this cold war spy thriller.

Tuna's notes in white:

Enigma is a joint French-British production shot in France, with a story that takes place in East Germany. It is currently only available to purchase from Germany on both VHS and DVD. I saw this in the US on VHS years ago, so it might be floating around some rental stores. It is a great espionage thriller, as well as a good love story. Martin Sheen stars as Alex Holbeck, excaped East German dissident who has his own free radio broadcast in Paris to expose the evils in the East German system. He is approached by the CIA, and asked to go to East Germany and steal an Enigma decoder card. Seems the Germans are planning to kill five dissidents all over the world on Christmas morning, and the CIA needs to prevent it. Sheen is sent in to get an East German encoder.

Total spoilers

I agree with Tuna. This movie is much too good to have been so easily and completely forgotten. It has a pretty nifty little spy/counterspy plot. Martin Sheen is hired by the CIA to steal a secret encoder from the East Germans, an act which will supposedly save the lives of many dissidents living overseas. There are a few things the CIA didn't tell Sheen; just a few petty details like the fact that the job can't be done, and that they need him to fail anyway, so will undermine his efforts in every way possible!

You see, it's a cat and mouse game. The Germans have stopped using the encoder because they think the Americans already have it. They are right. The Americans do already have it. Therefore, the Americans have to convince the Germans that they don't have it so that the Germans will start using it again, thus making all of their moves known to the CIA. Is there any way to convince the Germans that the CIA doesn't already have the encoder? Sure. Hire Martin Sheen to try to steal it. After all, why would the CIA try to steal something they already have?

To make absolutely sure that Sheen does not actually succeed, the CIA also makes it seem that their own intelligence is compromised, allowing the Russians and Germans to think they have uncovered Sheen's mission through their own spy networks. Of course, the CIA planted the information in such a way that the spies would think they were uncovering the mission on their own rather than being spoon-fed a story.

Poor old Sheen comes very close to screwing up the entire plan, because he organizes the dissident underground so effectively and devises such an ingenious scheme that he comes within a hair's breadth of the impossible - actually stealing the encoder. He is foiled only by a last minute brainstorm by a young genius from Russia (Sam Neill) who is helping the Germans on the case.

The spy plot is excellent to begin with, but the story is richly layered by a love triangle between an East German woman, Sheen, and the Russian mastermind. Sheen plots to outmaneuver the mastermind by having his girlfriend sleep with the Russian. Unfortunately, the Russian finds out about the scheme, but proceeds as if he does not know about it, thus managing to get laid and plant false information at the same time! But the best thing about the story is that the cold-hearted Russian actually falls in love with the woman, even while using her and knowing he is being used by her. The love triangle sets up an excellent ending to the movie, which I won't reveal, since I've already revealed much too much. In addition to the final twist, you will also enjoy the way that the cruel Stasi officer (Derek Jacobi) meets his ultimate personal fate.

The cast is very solid. In addition to a quietly solid performance from Marty Sheen and a nuanced show-stealing turn from Sam Neill, there are more traditional and one-dimensional baddie performances offered by Jacobi, Frank Finlay, and Michael Lonsdale, three classical actors slumming as a scheming German, Russian, and American, respectively. (Lonsdale is quite a rarity - a classical actor in two languages. He is French, but speaks English better than .... well, better than just about everyone, including me.) Brigitte Fossey is also excellent as the scholarly and modest professor's daughter who has to toughen up to prostitute herself for the cause, then ends up in love with two men - one on each side.

Enigma, which is dramatically underrated at IMDb, was directed by Jeannot Swarc, who has directed mostly television shows but also found time to helm the excellent Somewhere in Time, an all-time classic chick-flick.

I guess Enigma has faded from memory because these cold war thrillers now seem so completely dated after glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and also because it is a slow movie without a lot of dramatic tension except for a pretty cool opening scene in Sheen's Paris apartment. On the other hand, if you love the old Robert Ludlam style of cold war thriller, where the adversaries battle with their brains rather than with fists and guns, this one is recommended.