Decrypted

Character: Beth Barnes
Created by: Substantial Films
Directed by: Tom Sands
Written by: Mick Sands
Produced by: Phil Harris
Other cast: David Hoflin, Talisa Garcia, Akie Kotabe, Clive Francis, Emilia Fox, Don Gilet, Kevin McNally
Release date: December 1, 2020
Genre: Comedy

A botched NSA interrogation forces together a homophobic field agent, a feminist technical adviser, a transgender asylum seeker, a crypto- anarchist, a racist Brexiteer and an inclusionist MI5 agent. Sparks fly when their respective prejudices clash. But when they all succumb to a truth drug, their newfound honesty has riotous consequences.

Story Description

NSA agents Buck Johnson – a sexist veteran field officer – and his technical adviser Beth Barnes – a feminist rookie cyber expert – arrive at a London safe house, which is being watched by MI5 surveillance team Connie and Martin. Already at odds with each other, Buck and Beth interview Sofia, a streetwise Colombian woman, who possibly knows Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin. In return for US citizenship, Sofia reveals she’s been having kinky sex with him and arranges a bogus meeting, where Buck will snatch him.
Having noted Sofia’s interest in kinky sex, Buck turns off the internal surveillance and visits her room. While they have sex, Sofia steals his passcard, and Buck discovers to his horror that she’s transgender. He is deeply provoked and when he snatches Satoshi, Buck’s deep-rooted and violent homophobia surfaces. Buck beats up Satoshi and then waterboards him. Much to Buck’s annoyance, Satoshi seems to be enjoying himself. Beth reports his illegal actions to her superiors at NSA headquarters, but gets no response. She calls them and leaves the line open so that they can listen into what’s actually going on.

Finally realising Satoshi is a masochist, Buck injects him with a truth serum. But Sofia has switched it for water and put it in Buck’s and Beth’s drinks instead. Telling the drugged up agents why freedom of information is so crucial, Satoshi extracts their dark personal secrets and a few professional ones as well. After divulging too many intimate details, Buck and Beth grasp what’s happened.
At gunpoint, they give Satoshi and Sofia a shot of the truth serum. Now all of them compete to spill the beans. Satoshi is actually a crypto- anarchist called Jee Kim, who planned to use their passcodes to upload malware that makes the NSA system release proof of its efforts to sabotage cryptocurrencies. The truth party expands as George, a racist Brexiteer who lives downstairs, comes to complain about the noise, and pro-European MI5 operative Martin attempts to find out what’s going on in the safe house. Both are injected with truth serum. As they all reveal their deep truths, and listen to those of others, their various prejudices start to collapse, with hilarious consequences.
Having heard his agents confess classified data, Colonel Pike, who is in charge of the operation and in the midst of intense PTSD flashbacks, finally loses the plot and orders in a hit team. Buck, Beth, Sofia, Jee Kim, George, Martin and Connie are all killed by the hit team in a spectacular shootout. But having realised her employers are corrupt, Beth has helped Jee Kim upload his malware, and now the NSA system duly releases damning data to the media. Millions join together in protest.

Sophia’s Role

Trivia

Filming had to be suspended at the end of March due to Covid-19. Roughly 70% of the film had been recorded and editing of the film began whilst the production was stalled.

Quotes from Others

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Quotes from Reviews

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Quotes from Sophia

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