Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

bing an IT guy... I generally go in for this sort of thing. I mean, it was OK.... but lots of cliche's, some fairly wooden acting.Not really necessarily a tremendous amount of suspense. I guess the real shame of it was, as a few of the reviewers have already noted, quite a bit to work with. There was clearly a good budget, there was a good story line, and it all was ... decent. But just couldn't help thinking that there was so much more in there and the whole movie was, well, meh..

I didn't read through all 64 reviews before mine, but for those I read, they all seem to miss the theme of the movie.**** SPOILER ALERT from this point onward. ****First, this is fiction. How realistic is it for the same to happen in UK I can only guess.It was all a set-up from the beginning! MI5 bungled up and they needed to cover up (this is not the main theme of the movie). So the AG picked a pair of lawyers who were already compromised and thus could be forced to keep everything secret even when they eventually discovered the truth. And it played out exactly as the AG had intended, with the grand finale having the AG speaking nothing but lies in Parliament question time.An unusual movie where the bad guys got away and did not pay.

I missed the first half hour or so and those minutes must have been critical because this is one of those complicated mystery thrillers involving institutional conflicts. Bana and Hall represent an accused Arab "terrorist" in London. They want to introduce evidence that he was actually working as an MI5 undercover agent. MI5, naturally, tries to (and succeeds in) preventing this from happening, in the name of national security. It's David against Goliath and, as it would happen anywhere except in myth, Goliath wins.But no one should have the impression that this is just another smash-'em-up action movie. It's intelligently written, acted, and directed. Absent are the usual trite devices used to juice up an otherwise dull story -- slow motion deaths, the screams of the strangled, the endangered child, the pretty lady undressing while a monster peers through her window. That, in itself, raises the movie a step above most of the other detritus littering our screens these days. And of course the story is of fundamental importance in pitting two concepts of "justice" against one another -- the individual and the national.The other elements of the film -- the photography and location shooting and the rest -- are of professional caliber. Ciaran Hinds is a standout in his role of companion, mentor, and traitor. Rebecca Hall has an endearing lisp. And Eric Bana has marked malars.If it shows up on the telly again, I wouldn't object to seeing it from the beginning.

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