ReviewFilm review – The Top Secret: Murder in Mind is a slickly shot but incompetently narrated sci-fi horror
The main story line of the film, about a government department that puts implants in the brains of murder victims to solve crimes, is intriguing, but there are too many distracting subplots
1.5/5 stars
With a plot that is equal parts sci-fi, psychological thriller and found-footage gory horror, The Top Secret: Murder in Mind is a film that should at least keep the audience engaged. But an overlong runtime and a series of mundane subplots that repeatedly get in the way of the main narrative ultimately sink what is otherwise a slickly shot film with high production values.
Set in a futuristic Tokyo, the story centres around Aoki (Masaki Okada), a fresh-faced new recruit to a secretive government department that specialises in solving murders by implanting nanomachines in the brains of the deceased to conjure footage of the moments before death. Aoki’s case, a gruesome family murder, is unusual in that the killer has already been caught and executed, but one victim’s body cannot be found.
This central plot line is intriguing – even if the recovered memories of the victim and killer’s final moments are unnecessarily gruesome – but the script inexplicably wants to tell audiences the back stories of various side characters at the department, including Aoki’s boss (Toma Ikuta) and the resident coroner (Chiaki Kuriyama).
