Enigma (12)

LOVE and lust, lies and spies, the cloak and dagger cut and thrust of wartime secrets and sex surface in Michael Apted's menacingly muted adaptation of Robert Harris' World War Two thriller/romance, Enigma.

Cambridge mathematician Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) returns to Station X at Bletchley Park following a nervous breakdown caused by the break-up of a romance with femme fatale blonde Claire (Saffron Burrows).

The Allied code-breakers are at a loss after the Germans unexpectedly change the code that Tom had previously broken with the aid of a captured Enigma cipher machine.

The pressure is on as Tom seeks answers about Claire's disappearance and has to fend off the resentment of his superiors that he is the only one who can do the job.

Enlisting the help of Hester (Kate Winslett), Tom finds the two trails are inextricably linked.

The more so when the secret service, in the shape of Wigram (an oily, film-stealing performance from Jeremy Northam), shows a keen interest in his activities.

Despite its undeniably fascinating historical content, the film somehow fails to ever completely engage.

The period is lovingly recreated as Apted fills the screen with drab colours and gets the right blend of restrained passion and stiff-upper-lip resolve from his actors, but the inappropriate use of multiplex audience-pleasing car chases and races against time only serves to undermine the mounting tension.

However, it explains the birth of the computer age in laymen's terms and even makes the number-crunching plausible to us lamebrains.

Apted also bothers to include historical footnotes explaining the role of Bletchley Park in the war effort and throws more light on the shameful Katyn massacre which is touched on by the movie.

A good effort then, but you can't help thinking it could have been better.