Brazil (Rebooted Film)

Brazil is a 2021 reboot of the 1985 film of the same name. It stars Tom Holland, Tara Strong and John Goodman as well as a few others. It is made by Roadshow Films, Tyranno Ranger Geki Films and 20th Century Studios. The movie is about Sam Lowry, a low ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil's satire of bureaucratic, technocratic, terrorism, and an hyper-surveillance, state capitalist like totalitarian government is reminiscent of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and has been called Kafkaesque and absurdist.

Plot
In a dystopian, polluted, over consumerist, hyper-bureaucratic alternative present day, Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee who frequently daydreams of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress. One day shortly before Christmas a fly becomes jammed in a teleprinter, misprinting a copy of an arrest warrant it was receiving resulting in the arrest and accidental death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle instead of renegade heating engineer and suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle because Buttle's heart condition didn't appear on Tuttle's medical files that were provided to Information Retrieval.

Sam discovers the mistake when he discovers the wrong bank account had been debited for the arrest and visits Buttle's widow to give her the refund where he encounters the upstairs neighbour Jill Layton, and is astonished to discover that she resembles the woman from his dreams. Jill has been trying to help Mrs Buttle establish what happened to her husband, but her efforts have been obstructed by bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist accomplice of Tuttle for attempting to report the wrongful arrest of Buttle. Sam approaches Jill, but she avoids giving him full details, worried the government will track her down.

Sam reports a fault in his apartment's air conditioning. Central Services are uncooperative, but then Tuttle, who used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork, unexpectedly comes to his assistance. Tuttle repairs Sam's air conditioning, but when two Central Services workers, Spoor and Dowser, arrive, Sam has to fob them off to let Tuttle escape. The workers later return to demolish Sam's ducts and seize his apartment under pretence of fixing the system.

Sam discovers Jill's records have been classified and the only way to access them is to be promoted to Information Retrieval. He has previously turned down a promotion arranged by his mother, Ida, who is obsessed with the rejuvenating plastic surgery of cosmetic surgeon Dr Jaffe. Sam retracts his refusal by speaking with Deputy Minister Mr Helpmann at a party hosted by Ida. Having obtained Jill's records, Sam tracks her down before she can be arrested, then falsifies the records to indicate her death, allowing her to escape pursuit. The two share a romantic night together, but are apprehended by the government at gunpoint. Charged with treason for abusing his new position, Sam is restrained in a chair in a large, empty cylindrical room, to be tortured by his old friend, Jack Lint. Sam is told that Jill was killed while resisting arrest.

As Jack is about to start the torture, Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry, shooting Jack, rescuing Sam, and blowing up the Ministry building. Sam and Tuttle flee together, but Tuttle disappears amid a mass of scraps of paperwork from the destroyed building. Sam stumbles into the funeral of Ida's friend, who has died following excessive cosmetic surgery. Sam discovers that his mother now resembles Jill, and is too busy being fawned over by young men to care about her son's plight. Guards disrupt the funeral, and Sam falls into the open casket and through a black void. He lands in a street from his daydreams, and tries to escape police and monsters by climbing a pile of flex-ducts. Opening a door, he passes through it and is surprised to find himself in a truck driven by Jill. The two leave the city together. However, this "happy ending" is a delusion: in reality, he is still strapped to the chair. It is implied that he has been lobotomised by Jack. Realising that Sam has descended into blissful insanity, Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room. Sam remains in the chair, smiling and humming "Aquarela do Brasil" to himself.

Cast
Tom Holland as Sam Lowry

Tara Strong as Jill Layton

Robert Downey Jr. as Archibald "Harry" Tuttle

Joan Gregson as Mrs Ida Lowry

John Goodman as Mr Kurtzman

Steve Buscemi as Spoor

Jackie Chan as Jack Lint

Malcolm McDowell as Mr Warrenn

Dwayne Johnson as Mr Eugene Helpmann