Circle

A film composed of nothing but dialogue, restricted point of view story-telling and a literal ticking clock of building suspense, Circle toys with the deep-seated morality play of the human condition, though falls just short of properly exploring it. It would have benefited from fully embracing its ambiguity in place of a definite answer to the scenario, as the attempt to deliver a shocking twist ending instead only succeeds in robbing the audience of the chance to explore and discuss their varying interpretations.

Held captive and faced with their imminent executions, fifty strangers are forced to choose the one person among them who deserves to live.

Before getting too far into the film, I was reminded of "12 Angry Men". Looking into it a bit more, it is not surprising to find that this was, in fact, the primary inspiration. Something of a modern take on how we judge other people.

As a horror or science fiction film, the material is pretty light. But as social commentary, the film is strong. A bit heavy-handed, maybe, or in some ways too obvious in its stereotypes, but still clever just the same. We are left to wonder if humanity was in such a situation, who would survive? (The film actually suggests an answer, but let us not get into the spoilers!)

So after watching the movie i was like: Ok.. so.. what?

It is an interesting piece about human psychology/behavior/self preservation and what we are willing to do to survive but.

That's about it.

If you like just that, i guess that is a movie for you i can see the intent behind the idea but i just couldn't really get behind it.

Especially the end leaves a lot of questions like: So what now? What exactly was the purpose of this.

But everything is left open, i don't really see any reasoning behind the actions taken. To be honest the movie would have been (at least for me) better with on open ending not revealing who did it and what actually happened to the last person.

But the way it actually ended made the movie worse for me.

Eerie? Yes. Smart? Kind of, yes. Interesting? Also, yes. Worth an oscar? No, definitely no. Worth your time? Maybe, if you are into weird movies like "the cube". 50 people in a circle, don't know how they got there and every 2 minutes someone gets zapped and dies. Talking seems to be the only way to get through this... So this sounds interesting and it actually is. It will keep your eyes and ears awake and luckily its not a long film, so it never becomes dull. If you are having a movie night and plan to watch 3 movies, then watch this one in the middle. 6/10

'Circle.' It's a pretty tight little film, basically filmed only in the one location for an hour and a half – the location being a completely pitch black room with fifty red spots on the floor. In each, stands a random stranger and every couple of minutes one of which gets zapped by – er – something and brutally killed before their body is dragged off into the gloom. Confused? How do you think the fifty people feel?! And that's that – fifty people turns to forty. Forty turns to thirty and so on. It's a tough sell and it's probably never going to be a mainstream hit (especially as about the most well-known face is Dexter's wife from the TV series of the same name). Anyway, I think it deserves a cult following as I'm sure it will find an audience out there somewhere.

Its simple premise and delivery kind of reminded me of other (rather fun films) such as The Human race and Cube. Yes, it's hardly action-packed. The fifty people can't even move off their little red spot on the floor – if they do, that nasty zapper comes back for them again and that's that for them. What you have is a kind of morality tale about what people would do in this situation. Would they vote to kill people they don't know just to save themselves, or would they try and save everyone? It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I can see plenty of people finding it boring, or being annoyed at the ending (I won't say why – you'll have to check out the internet message boards!), but if you're in the mood for something a little different and without any major car chases or Marvel superheroes destroying entire cities then give this one a go. I found it on Netflix and was glad I did – definitely worth seeing if you're in the mood for something dark, talky and that will make you question what you'd do in this most of weird and extreme of situations.