When I waste time like this, I always rush to the "Hated it" reviews to bathe it the warmth of shared derision. But this time MY GOD PEOPLE! no wonder you believe Hillary kills people!? The problem with this movie is not the acting or pacing or cinematography or romance based on home-wrecking. It's the utterly silly setup. For reasons that are unclear the establishment is bent on conducting a show trial, with a culprit/victim who for reasons that are unclear is willing to go along with it, perhaps because his family for reasons that are unclear wants him to. So they manipulate things to assign a couple of compromised defense lawyers to handle the public and in camera portions of the trial. But the lawyers press on so the secret service starts murdering people to avoid some horrifically inept bungling coming to light... Um okay. Turns out 1 in 10 Brits is a member of MI5, so there is no need for CCTV, which doesn't play any part despite the would be eponymous title. This reaches a climax when our heroes must escort a teenage witness to the court. For no reason they seem to think the court is some kind of magic sanctuary... Anyway, this gut wrenching sequence plays out by the protagonists shouting "Hey look over there!" then walking to the courthouse. Where upon MI5 figures out the obvious solution and the movie thankfully ends. Er except for a coda with the lawyers acting like the sluts they are...

The ONLY reason this is marked low is because such a relevant subject has been hamfistedly handled. In a Kingdom that has more CCTV than the rest of Europe combined & OSA that basically allows the UK government to do as they please we are delivered a clunky, out of the box terrorist, formulaic offering. The director had a plethora of talent at his disposal and it annoys me that this talent was misused. It is like giving a kid a smartphone for Xmas and all he does is make calls. I still enjoyed it, because I wanted to, was hoping for something new, not clichéd nor 'Hollywood'. Solid acting from all saves standard fare from the $1 bin. In this age of saturated manipulation, coercion and dummification of the populace, I ache for something that challenges the globalisation and manipulation of the masses. I beg film makers to be like Mike Leigh with 'I Daniel Blake' to remember what their responsibilities are and who buys their 'flipping' cinema tickets. If you make a controversial movie or want to....... crowd fund the 'flipper'...........drops mic.....

The tagline for this film "they see your every move" has been a very relevant theme in my country (New Zealand) lately, brought to light in our general election. The debate over spying and what was and was not acceptable raged throughout the country for months on end and was a very hot topic among the politicians. 'Closed Circuit' seems to have marketed itself as a film based around this, however when you actually get around to watching it it's very much a background issue merely used to drive the plot in a few instances. Usually I would be disappointed about being mislead like this, but in this case the film itself more than makes up for it.Here we have an intelligent, well-written and well acted thriller. The way that everything is so story driven you could easily have mistaken this for an American movie. It's taken the best of both British and American film and combined them perfectly. Eric Bana, admittedly not one of my favourite actors, is passable in this. He adequately drives the story and carries one or two scenes which require it.The ending seems to be a bone of contention for a few people. Personally I liked it. Too many people these days demand a movie be wrapped up in a tight little basket of perfection at the end, but sadly that's not how the world works. There isn't always justice in this world of ours and I admire any movie brave enough to portray that.

With the waft of a BBC movie and with some pretty shoddy production values, Boy A (a film you have to track down that features an early stunning turn from Spider-Man himself Andrew Garfield) director John Crowley's 2013 thriller Closed Circuit starts off in a very mundane way and while not translating into anything more than a well-paced if highly unbelievable thriller it marks itself off as an enjoyable way to pass 90 minutes of your life with a story that will grow on you as the red herrings and mysteries pile up.Closed Circuit is a certainly a strange name for a movie that really has nothing to do with surveillance, instead Crowley's film focuses on the tensions and discoveries made between Eric Bana's gruff (and very un-British sounding) arrogant lawyer Martin Rose and one time lover Claudia Simmons-Howe played by the always threatening to break out of b grade status Rebecca Hall. These people are not overly likable and the film lacks a figure that can up the feel of the piece as a whole even though it's nice to see fine character actors Ciaran Hinds, Jim Broadbent and a man possibly bound for future stardom in the form of the always great Riz Ahmed get some nice supporting roles. With a lack of real interest for the films body of people it is up to the plot boiler story to carry it through.As previously mentioned Closed Circuit's story is not really too concerned with being overly believable, in one particular instance it is insinuated that a large government agency such as Mi5 can't hack computers but by and by the story succeeds at grabbing your attention and making you keen enough to see how it all transpires. At the heart of the story is a very intriguing and relatively possible scenario of agency meddling gone wrong and the idea of terrorist attacks on a city like London remain frighteningly possible which gives the film a feeling of current time relevance.Lacking an acting spark that would have really made Closed Circuit more the sum of its parts, in saying that the film does still remain to be a solid and at times surprising thriller. Ending off proceedings in a manner that shows us just what could have been with this story, Closed Circuit is forgettable yet not regrettable and for topical thrillers that is a refreshing twist.3 Bran Stark's out of 5 For more movie reviews and opinions check out -www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com