2. Martin Rose - Closed Circuit (2013)
Universal PicturesThere have been numerous thrillers in recent years which have attempted to cash in on our surveillance culture. We had Vantage Point, which tried (and ultimately failed) to recreate Rashamon around the attempted assassination of the US President. We had Body of Lies, Ridley Scott's underwhelming spy film about the CIA's attempt to apprehend an enemy agent in Iraq. And now we have Closed Circuit, a film which says a lot less about surveillance than it thinks it does and which finds Bana decidedly miscast. Closed Circuit stars Bana as Martin Rose, a British barrister who is selected alongside his ex-lover Claudia Simmons-Howe (Rebecca Hall) to defend Farroukh Erdogan (Dennis Moschitto). Farroukh is suspected of orchestrating a terrorist attack which destroyed a busy London market; the trial involves large amounts of classified information, with even the defending barristers being kept in the dark on certain details. As the former lovers begin to dig around, they uncover a murky cover-up operation involving MI5, double agents and attempted assassinations. In the hands of someone like Roman Polanski, Closed Circuit could have made a great deal more of this set-up, making its Chinatown-like conspiracy of silence all the more labyrinthine and harrowing. Instead, it feels like a strange and uncomfortable cross between Homeland and Judge John Deed, with limp direction from John Crowley and somewhat televisual production values. Bana is between a rock and a hard place, not knowing whether to keep his character refined and controlled or to play on the rising sense of panic brought on by his actions. The result is another flat and confusing performance which goes some way to undermining what tension remains.