I Watch Films: Restore Point

 

Restore Point

It’s 2041, and in Central Europe everyone has the right to be revived if they die an unnatural death. To do that you need to create a Restore Point in the last 48 hours. Controversially the Restoration Institute is going to be privatised.

After a River Of Life terrorist attack keeps hostages past 48 hours and the terrorist kills himself, detective Em Trochinowska is first reprimanded then given a new job; David Kurlstat, one of the inventors of Restoration, and his wife, have been killed. In an especially surprising twist, neither of them had a valid restore point.

But then a revived David appears – one created from a Restore Point six months in the past. He rapidly starts to deteriorate, the difference between the Restore Point and his body causing sickness. He’s missing the last six months, doesn’t know why he didn’t have a Restore Point, doesn’t know why his wife didn’t. He did stash some of the drugs to counteract the problems he’s having, and he does have some ideas of where Em might look.

These include an off-grid encampment, of people who reject technology, linked perhaps to River Of Life and inside Restoration where a hacker is deleting Restore Points. Em’s bosses are under political pressure, the forthcoming privatisation of Restoration must go smoothly and she should clear all this up. And meanwhile she mourns her husband, killed in a terrorist attack, a hologram of him and his piano playing often repeated.

A Czech cyberpunk-noir thriller, with a lot of the elements you might expect. These are interestingly remixed, partly with the specifically Central European imagery and concerns, partly with the story.

Watch This: Dark science fiction detective story with inevitable betrayal and twists
Don’t Watch This: Another neo-noir story where all the institutions trying to cover something up accidentally put their most upright and competent investigator on the case