Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORY BANK (1983)

From: [email-masked] (Christopher E. Meadows)
Date: 7 Mar 1997 15:43:20 GMT

OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORY BANK
                       A film review by Christopher E. Meadows
                        Copyright 1997 Christopher E. Meadows

84 minutes, color

Starring Raul Julia, Linda Griffiths, Wanda Cannon, Donald C. Moore,
Chapelle Jaffe, Louis Negin

Produced by Robert Lantos & Stephen J. Roth

Directed by Douglas Williams

MPAA: Not Rated (though from language, violence, medical-gross-outs,
and sexual content, I'd put it at PG)

My rating: 7/10

Though made in Canada, "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" traces its roots
to the BBC school of film production.  Using, for the most part, cheap
computer and video special effects, chyron text, wildlife documentary
footage, and sets that are sometimes obviously faked up, it
nonetheless manages to tell a good enough science fiction story that
by the time you're twenty minutes into it, you should be hooked.

Raul Julia plays Aram Fingal, a drone data processing worker for
Novicorp whose active imagination and predilection for hacking gets
him into trouble with authority.  Caught watching "Casablanca" on his
desk monitor, Fingal is sentenced to "doppling" rehabilitation--he is
to spend forty-eight hours in the body of a baboon.  (How exactly this
is supposed to rehabilitate him is anybody's guess.)  As it happens,
thanks to a visiting schoolboy's prank, his body is temporarily
misplaced, and his mind has to be shunted into the central computer to
keep him alive until they can find it.  As time ticks away before his
memory cube self-destructs, the frantic search for his body is
on...while Fingal first creates a virtual reality fantasy world, then
finds there's no better way to hack the system than from the inside.

During the chaos, computer technician Apollonia James (Linda
Griffiths) maintains contact with Fingal through a datalink,
manifesting several different times to offer advice or warnings.  Over
the course of their interactions, interest on both their parts grows
into a budding romance.

Given that "Casablanca" is Fingal's favorite film, and the basis for
his fantasy world, a great deal of the movie is homage to
"Casablanca".  In fact, the Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre characters
make appearances (played by Julia in a dual role and Louis Negin,
respectively) in a bar called "The Place".  Julia's portrayal of
Bogart is passable, and avoids becoming the "schweethaat"-spouting
parody seen in cartoons.  Negin's Peter Lorre is quite credible, and
easily the best Peter Lorre I've ever seen who wasn't the real thing.
The two of them, as characters created by Fingal's imagination, serve
as aspects of his personality, driving him on in his quest to hack the
computer system.

Those aren't the only Casablanca characters to put in appearances.
The Sydney Greenstreet character also happens to be around...as "The
Fat Man", the alternate aspect of the film's main villain, the
Novicorp Chairman (Donald C. Moore).  While Fingal's body is lost, the
Fat Man tries to stop him from hacking the system...with less than
salutory results.

It's interesting to note the futuristic slang words that are thrown
about left and right during the film, in the best golden-age science
fiction tradition.  Words like "dopple", "psychist", "computech",
"cinema", and "reconst" are apparently in common use.  And while
people of today may well laugh at fourteen years past's idea of
futuristic data processing clerks, some aspects of this film are
surprisingly perfectly in keeping with the way we think of "virtual
reality" today.  As cyberpunk films go, this may not be a staple of
the genre, but it's definitely recommended viewing.

The special effects are very primitive, placing this production in the
realm of low-to-medium-budget television.  The music is completely
electronic-synthesized, which fits the low budget but isn't really out
of keeping with the genre.  However, the writing quite makes up for
it.  There are some very funny moments, and quite a few little
in-jokes that one needs to have seen "Casablanca" to appreciate
properly.  All in all, I give "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" a 7 out
of 10.

This review is copyright 1997 by Christopher E. Meadows.  Permission
granted for free distribution over Usenet and associated archival, and
for archival and display associated with the Internet Movie Database
(http://www.imdb.com).  All other distribution requires permission
from the author.

-- 
Chris Meadows aka  | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co.
Robotech_Master    | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy)
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