BigBeluga

When I read a synopsis of this movie, it looked like a straight to video knockoff of the overrated 2010 film "Buried" starring Ryan Reynolds. Another movie where a person wakes up in a coffin under mysterious circumstances? Really? But the similarities (!) end there.

This is an incredibly well executed movie. Stephen Dorff has come a hell of a long way since Blade and turns in a gritty, absolutely convincing performance. His acting, combined with a tight script and a solid score, maintain tension throughout the film.

This is going to be one of the sleeper hits of 2012 and will make a great dark horse next awards season.

Just when you thought "Undisputed 3: Electric Boogie-woogie" set an impassable bar as this year's worst MMA/fight film, along comes the magnanimous "Circle of Pain". The dialogue and acting seems like something out of the Lifetime channel (or even the probably-defunct-but-I-won't-bother-to-check Oxygen network), but with random/bizarre, super contrived graphic sex scenes sprinkled throughout. Our hero, a down on his luck ex-fighter, has been out of the game for over five years. Under the coaching tutelage of fake Brett Favre, he decides to make a comeback to fight the champ in… two months?!? P90X, eat your heart out. Dean Cain mails it in at our hero's wheelchair bound roommate. The closest thing we have to a legit acting performance in this flick comes from Kimbo "don't call me a tomato can" Slice! The fight scenes could not be any more dull, and the movie lacks even a single frame of comic relief. This is a film completely lacking in any redeeming value, save as potential fodder for an MST3K revival.