Movies linking different stories taking place all over the world are usually are praised for the interweaving plot coming together with some big revelation. Think about Babel, universally praised for mixing intercontinental tragedy. I liked it moderately, as it was a bit too gloomy, and I would not put it in my top-ten list.On the other hand, 360 working on a similar take, was vilified almost unanimously. On a different merry-go-round we have the stories of an English businessman ready to stray with a prostitute in Vienna, while his wife is already straying in London with a Brazilian guy, whose fiancée is dumping him for said infidelity and traveling back home, etc… Since the prostitute is having her photos taken by a photographer for her online advert, the movie starts and finishes with a girl entering the study, thus coming round 360 degrees. A couple of stories are quite weak, such as the Brazilian girl meeting a sex offender en route to Brazil and the prostitute's sister running away with a stranger. However, compared to Babel what is missing here is mega tragedy and that is exactly what made Babel so pretentious, with its existentialist grandeur.Therefore, I liked 360 better because its characters are more "normal" – except, perhaps, the Russian mobsters – and their lives are not experiencing huge calamities. They just change or adjust slightly. I guess that was not liked by the critics (and public). Nowadays, a level of extra-drama seems to be required in ever massive doses to relieve with excitement our numbed existences … at least for a couple of hours.

Annoying lack of closure: - Pimp, photographer, and blackmailer gets no consequences - Cheating wife gets no consequences - Husband attempts to cheat but gets blackmailed - Blackmailer wins and gets no consequences - Wife of cheating husband nearly raped by rehabbed pervert? Gives old man hope? - Old man never finds daughter? - Rehabbed Pervert's story ends without closure? - Unworthy prostitute gets rich quick? - Prostitute's intelligent sister hooks up with Russian Thug? - Muslim gives up religious beliefs for married woman? - Subtitles in movie are often unreadable as they appear white on white Not a 'feel good' kind of movie... too many loose ends... bad guys win and at least three good guys end up alone and miserable. Five stars for acting. Zero stars for poor storytelling... c'mon a woman (supposedly the brains of the family) jumps into an obvious thug's car because it's raining? This works only if the story is science fiction and plays out on another planet. Yes, think of it as Planet Whatever.

360 is all about circles (hence the title) – the circle of life; circles of deceit; the circles in which people move; the circular nature of actions and consequence… all conveyed by way of a circular narrative. The cast is very strong and it's no surprise that the film is excellently performed across the board. Sadly, the plaudits end there… away from the strength of the acting there's really not much left to admire. Too much pretentiousness, irritating over-editing, an excessively leisurely narrative which doesn't really go anywhere, jerky switches in mood and style – there are simply too many shortcomings for this to be anything more than a minor curio. There isn't a plot to speak of, more a series of mini-plots which interweave from time to time. The one link between the various stories is that they all focus on characters who are wrestling with some sort of relationship problem, be it infidelity between husbands and wives, disapproval regarding the actions of a loved one , or a craving to reconnect with family members who are lost (literally and metaphorically). The film is more interested in characters than story; an unusual approach, yes, and arresting for a while, but ultimately not fulfilling enough to carry it for almost two hours.Director Fernando Meirelles has done some very good films (City Of God, The Constant Gardener for example) so one could be forgiven for expecting big things of 360. Meirelles gets great performances from his actors, as mentioned already, but struggles to mould the unwieldy narrative into any kind of shape. The film is only sporadically effective – a flash of tension here, a well-written line of dialogue there – but overall it drifts along rather tediously, much like a rudderless ship. Between these occasional glimpses of what-might-have- been, the lack of purpose is painfully evident and clumsy efforts are made to disguise it with gimmicky editing and pointless pauses that are presumably meant to be 'deep' and 'meaningful'. These 'interlocking- story' films seem to be becoming increasingly popular of late, so its some relief at least that 360 doesn't go down the horribly schmaltzy route of such unbearable slush-fests as Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve. If nothing else, this film doesn't go in for absurdly pat resolutions wherein everything works itself perfectly and everyone ends up living happily ever after with someone else, which is where these other sickly sweet portmanteau films go wrong. 360 concludes on a hopeful note for some of its characters, but for others things don't work out or, in some cases, they work out only partially and at a price. In the final analysis, 360 is a very average film with delusions of greatness. Watch it for the acting by all means, but if it's a powerful emotional drama you're seeking you'd be better off searching elsewhere.

I love social movies, but unfortunately this one was Boring, slow and without any exciting twists in the story. Antony Hopkins' monologue at the AA meeting is the best part of the movie as far as I'm concerned , because you know he will never disappoint you, but other than that ,it really isn't a movie that will enrich you in some way, it is a waste of time really.I also disliked the music, it was poorly chosen and made the movie look even worse. All that made me skip quickly to the end because I wanted to stop watching it, that's how boring it was. I was disappointed because I thought that actors such as Jude Law and Hopkins would eventually offer some excitement in the movie,but mainly, it tells common stories of our daily lives, so..what else is new?