I don’t know how it directly ties into my film obsessions exactly, but I love movies based in any way on cameras being used to film things. It’s why I’m a found footage apologist and what keeps films like David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Michael Haneke’s Caché and Benny’s Video stuck in my head so many years after I’ve seen them. While those films’ thrills are in no way related to what I assume John Crowley’s Closed Circuit will offer, they set the precedent that gets me in the front door for a terrorism-fueled thriller, a genre of film that hits me in a different way than it used to.
But even without the titular closed circuit cameras’ involvement, this looks like multi-layered piece that won’t rely on any one element to excite audiences. Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall play ex-lovers who are brought in to defend a terrorist accused of the U.K. explosion seen in the beginning of the trailer. His involvement is traced back to the government, who hired him to find the real terrorist. But nobody knows who is at the head of the totem pole. . I love a trailer that is both tense and visually stimulating enough to keep my eyes hooked on the screen, as well as drawing me into the mysteries it isn’t revealing. Hall's character appears to become threatened by...everyone? Who's behind all this?
It looks like Closed Circuit may take a damning approach to the massive infrastructure of closed circuit surveillance in London, which would be interesting, even if helps them in the end. Remember Vantage Point? Me either.
With almost too much talent to be a failure - Julia Stiles, Jim Broadbent, Riz Ahmed also star – Closed Circuit is definitely one that I’ll watch soon after it releases on August 28, 2013.
Check out the new poster for the film below, and don’t hurt yourself looking over your shoulder too quickly.
