Circle (2015)

A group of strangers play the worst game of musical chairs ever.

“I hope there’s a goody bag.”

Have you ever watched your favorite game show and hoped for the obnoxious guy to get eliminated? If you have, this film is for you! In Circle, a few dozen purposely average people awaken on the set of a macabre game show and get blown up one by one by an unseen force. In this competition there are no pesky questions to stump the contestants, just some weird Francois Truffaut-like hand jive movements that kill.

“Scary!”

Yeah, not so much.

With a play-like structure and dialogue taken directly from one of those ‘scenes for actors’ books, Circle manages to be both illogical and boring. It’s also unbelievable. Why are these people in this earthbound Carousel and where the hell is Richard Jordan?

“We did it first…with flying.”

What’s especially odd is how quickly the crowd of random stereotypes grasp the inner workings of this quick-killing version of The Weakest Link. After all, it took Truffaut and Bob Balaban half a Spielberg-length film to figure out their six-note code and these guys are not Truffaut and Balaban.

“We’re better than you.”

The Grand Wazoo or whoever runs this sideshow, knocks off a player every 30 seconds or so, but despite the kill count, nothing much happens. People make statements. They accuse and shout and connive like they’re trying out for Survivor. Backstabbing abounds. This part puzzles me. Somehow the dopey stander-arounders figure out (in about a minute) they can gang up on people, zap them, and save themselves. I don’t know how they got that by loitering on lit circles, but that’s me. Then, the movie does that ‘humans are basically horrible’ thing and shows us the ugly side of most of the characters we never get to know anyway so when they die we don’t care. Hooray!

Some people in the film.

I don’t understand films that don’t bother to establish a single character. I get that this isn’t a masterpiece, but someone wrote it…on purpose. I’ll bet Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione, the writing/directing team, had a great idea for this film. They just didn’t let us in on it. I don’t mean to beat these guys up, but Circle is a prime example of an intriguing idea that leads to a movie that goes nowhere. Someone should have said something like, “The circle concept is great, but why are they there? Are you doing a Pirandello/Sartre thing or can’t you think of an ending? Also, why do all the characters sound like they’re auditioning for summer stock?”

“I hope I get it! I hope I get it!”

Maybe it’s not fair to criticize the film this harshly, but it’s not good or the least bit frightening. I try to find positive things to say about most of the films I review, but the only thing that stands out about this film was its shape—round.

“Goodbye.”

“L’enfer, c’est le cercle.”
-Fred Sartre, insurance actuary

Ahhhh here he is.