Peter Kettle Closed Circuit is a Working Title movie made with great style, good acting and a proper script. No computer special effects needed, no spectacular exploding buildings; simply another example of Stephen Knight at work, and it's up there with Locke. 'A high-profile terrorism case unexpectedly binds together two ex-lovers on the defense team - testing the limits of their loyalties and placing their lives in jeopardy. Director John Crowley does an excellent unpretentious job illuminating this very good plot and script. Eric Bana, new to me, and Rebecca Hall, are convincingly good as the one time lovers. Jim Broadbent, Kenneth Cranham, Ciaran Hinds, Anne-Marie Duff are all excellent. It illustrates how important is the SCRIPT! So many movies do not get this vital ingredient first and foremost. Without credible dialogue you're sunk, no matter who is in it. Rebecca Hall is her usual brilliant subtle self. Nobody in this largely overlooked film is less than very good.

leplatypus Visually, this movie is awful with its blue filter… Then, the story opens with a English judicial proceeding that is not well explained for the audience. Later, the movie crumbles unto its incoherence and at the end, we can't really believe to what we have watched… BUT : The cast is excellent : Bana is always an inspired choice to portray a fighting idealist, Rebecca finds a part that makes her use her intelligence and skills and Hinds & Broadbent plays their usual well educated bastards.The movie is a useful alert for careful citizens : History proved that we can't buy what government says, all the more than the message is always twisted to fit our needs. The only way to get the truth is 100% transparency (remember Glasnost ?) and as the movie depicts, limited hearings, undisclosed proofs, national security arguments are the factors of a dirty, dark democracy ! So be like Saint Thomas and believe only what you have personally checked and like the movie, try to explain why all those terrorists are already filed as dangerous by the authorities BEFORE their action ?

diana-y-paul "Closed Circuit" (2013), an adrenaline-pumping political thriller, portrays corrupt government forces who will stop at nothing. It's an exciting genre. The title "Closed Circuit" is designed to raise the alarm over both the injustice of closed court hearings and the use of surveillance technology. Covert surveillance amplifies the sense that London has become a police state with ubiquitous security cameras. We don't know who's watching or how they're using what they see. The opening scene provides the hook. After a truck explodes in London's bustling Borough Market, killling 120 people, authorities at MI5 swiftly arrest a Muslim immigrant, Farroukh Erdogan based on closed circuit surveillance. Read the entire review at: unhealedwound.com

eddie_baggins 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