Cypher, Trust Only Lucy Liu

This is one of those trust no one movies.  Morgan Sullivan (Jeremy Northam) is an IT geek who enters a stage in his life where trusting someone could get him deleted.  He is an apparent loser.  His dominant wife treats him like a housekeeper, and has plans for him to get a menial IT job with her dad's corporation.  Sullivan would rather sail the South Pacific (...not that he is in any position to).  He is nerdy, drinks ginger ale, reads, and never dares to talk back to his type-A wife.

As the movie begins, our nerd has stepped out of his comfort zone.  He has just earned a job with a mysterious corporation.  His new job will have him be a corporate spy.  His new employer fixes him up with a phony identity.  The last question asked of him before being hired, "Will you have difficulty lying to your wife?"  With a wry smile, he says no.  He is then sent on a host of business trips to spy on corporations at conferences and he gets to lie to his wife about his whereabouts.
Too good to be true!  During one of these conferences, an apparent convention prostitute catches his eye.  He attempts to rendezvous with her, but our whore is not who she seems to be.  With a couple of henchmen with her, Lucy Liu turns the tables on him. She tells him what his new employer has in store for him, and proves to him that he is also being drugged and brainwashed.  Then the roller coaster begins.

Lucy Liu plays Rita Foster, the femme fatale.  Can she be trusted?  We can see that Morgan Sullivan is pulled in by her beauty, and nothing else.  She wears tight outfits, is very acrobatic, and has an air of mystery about her (the perfect antithesis of his wife).  Will she lead Sullivan to salvation or ruination?  As Sullivan grows more and more into his new identity, one thing is certain, he will never go back.

This 2002 flick works in so many ways.  As our protagonist is manipulated, so are we the viewer.  We pull for Sullivan, as he is such an underdog.  For those like me, if you found Kevin Costner's "No Way Out" a disappointment, the plot-twist filled "Cypher" is the movie for you. This film is now available on Netflix.