The opening sequence of "Closed Circuit," in which viewers bear witness to London's bustling Borough Market being decimated by a terrorist bomb at the cost of a couple hundred lives through a collection of overlapping security camera images, is so immediately compelling (even more so for the way that it presents such horrifying imagery in a way that doesn't feel particularly exploitative) that it sets a fairly high artistic bar pretty early on in the proceedings. The trouble is that not only does the film fail to live up to the enormous promise of those initial moments, it doesn't even try to do so for the rest of its running time. The result is a dreary and derivative thriller that is nowhere near as smart or controversial as it clearly believes itself to be.
The film is not about the investigation into the bombing; blame is quickly assigned to radicalized Turk Farroukh Erdogan (Denis Moschitto) and a trial is scheduled. The only hiccup is that some of the evidence being introduced by the government is so potentially explosive that not even the defendant himself is allowed to see it for himself. In such cases, defendants like Farroukh are allowed two lawyers—one who will defend him in public and a special advocate who defends him during the closed sessions and is allowed to look at the secret evidence, albeit under orders not to divulge said information to anyone, especially the other lawyer.
Release date: 28 August 2013
Language: English
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