Spies, Lies and audio tape

From the director of the tremendously inventive Cube, this science fiction paranoia thriller dares to remodel The Manchurian Candidate for the new millennium.

The fact that it almost works is a genuine tribute to its aspiration — and the assurance with which director Vincenzo Natali handles the labyrinthine narrative.

Set in a dystopian near-future, in which corporate power dominates personal lives, it sketches its subject with economy and speed.

An anonymous, geeky accountant, Morgan Sullivan (Jeremy Northam), is tested for a role as an industrial spy for the multinational company Digicorp. He has, it appears, no problems with discretion.

“You don’t mind lying to your own wife?” asks his interrogator. “No,” he replies. “No, I don’t.” Deviousness and deception go with the territory, and Sullivan, it is clear from the outset, is prepared to comply.

As his undercover “work” consists of little more than attending interminably boring marketing conferences and secretly recording them, doubts set in regarding the true nature of his task and Digicorp’s motives.

Approached by the enigmatic Rita (Lucy Liu), who persuades him that he has been brainwashed by Digicorp, Sullivan is lured into acting as a double agent for rival company Sunways.

He assumes another false identity and life becomes even more complex — a situation not helped by the ferocious nightmares and headaches that assault him without warning.

Natali manages to sustain the climate of corporate paranoia well by bleaching out most of the colour from the screen; blues and greys predominate and emphasise the gelid atmosphere of fear and mystery.

As Sullivan — and with three subtly differing roles — Northam delivers one of his finest, most delicately shaded performances to date. With a nod to recent SF films like Minority Report and the criminally underrated Imposter (both based on Philip K Dick novels), Natali’s movie keeps its glacial grip until near the end, and offers up one or two genuinely shocking moments; the brainwashing scene is particularly unpleasant.