Benedict Cumberbatchplays the role of World War II codebreaker Alan Turing, who was ‘convicted of gross indecency after engaging in homosexual relations’. And as the mathematician receives a posthumous royal pardon, a film still has been released of Benedict Cumberbatch in his new role as the wartime codebreaker in The Imitation Game. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2530073/Hes-cracked-First-look-Benedict-Cumberbatch-World-War-II-codebreaker-Alan-Turing-The-Imitation-Game.html#ixzz2ohthLWNM
Just watched the movie today and thought it was great. Not historically accurate in places and there is plenty of Hollywood type drama but still very entertaining. Cumberbatch is excellent in his portrayal of Turing and the ending is particulary sad due to his treatment by the government. Well worth seeing and recommended as long as you keep in mind it's not a documentary and only loosely based on the Turing biography by Andrew Hodges.
Just finished watching and really enjoyed. The cast and acting were good. Maybe some on here will expect nothing but absolute truth, they will be disappointed. Turing's story needs to be told however made. The man was maybe as much as an Enigma as he went on to help crack and read.
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, even although, as has been pointed out, certainly not a documentary. The competition was too strong for best actor though, with "The Theory of Everything" guy who played Steven Hawking. The British treatment of him, was worse than de Gaulle's of the British agents. H.C.
I really enjoyed the movie as well. For a movie it was pretty damn close, but one thing did bug me a bit. It wouldn't have been their decision to withhold information about the Wolfpack converging on the convoy. That would have been the higher ups.
There were probably a lot of inaccuracies like that. However, it was one of the better movies I have seen lately if one simply regards it as a movie, with the consequent drama! Hazel
@JohnS As you say, it wouldn't have been up to Turing and his team to withhold information about the u-boats converging on the convoy. That was the one thing in an entertaining film that annoyed me too. It caused me to think things through a bit. I don't see that Turing and his team would need to know what Allied convoys there were in what positions. Their job was merely to decode German messages. So, if successful, they knew what the Germans were saying to each other; eg a decoded message might say 'all u-boats go and attack a convoy that will be at position xyz at 4 tomorrow morning'. But that doesn't mean that a convoy actually would be at position xyz at 4 tomorrow morning, only that the Germans thought so. The Germans were often mistaken. A u-boat catching a glimpse through a storm of a ship several miles away often made inaccurate observations of a convoy's speed or direction. Sometimes the Germans observed two different convoys with 24 hours between them and thought they were the same convoy. Or the reverse: two different observations of a certain convoy were thought to be of two different convoys. So once Turing and team had worked out what a German message actually said and passed it on, somebody else still had the challenging job of working out how accurate the German assumptions were and after that, with accurate knowledge of all relevant Allied forces, taking decisions about what to do. Anything wrong with my understanding here?
While it's an entertaining film, it's not really worth trying to analyse the cryptographic sequences for historical accuracy as they are simplified to the point of absurdity. The film makes it look as if Turing and his little team were Bletchley Park: in fact it was a vast operation with different groups scattered about the site all beavering away at their particular aspect of codebreaking and interpretation. The film is rather like that American series 'CSI': in that, the main characters combine jobs that in real life would be done by a number of different people. Apparently Turing probably didn't even know the traitor John Cairncross. The development and use of the Colossus machine is particularly misrepresented for dramatic effect. The convoy subplot is a complete invention; it is a reworking of the old 'Did Churchill deliberately sacrifice Coventry?' legend.
I thoroughly enjoyed the his film. I did actually know that much about Turing before watching this film but it spurred me onto do a little more research into him. Exceptional man very sad what the government did to him.
A commentary from the National Archives (UK, not US): Link:The Archivists' Guide to Film: The Imitation Game - The National Archives blog
