Closed Circuit
Focus Features | Release Date: August 28, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
23
Negative:
4
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 28, 2013
The movie is low-key but each scene is packed with information. Full understanding demands full attention. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanAug 28, 2013
It has a chillingly matter-of-fact cynicism that is very au courant. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 28, 2013
Director John Crowley trots his crew around London, working up a suitable amount of suspense. And paranoia. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 27, 2013
Closed Circuit may be little more than a high-minded, shrewdly topical gloss on a shopworn genre, but its cynicism is bracing. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigAug 27, 2013
Not only an intelligent, well-told and deftly acted story, it provides refreshing counter-programming in a season filled with noisy, uninspired sequels and mindless action movies. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 27, 2013
In addition to Bana and Hall, Jim Broadbent is outstanding in a couple of scenes, as a government official, watching from the sidelines and offering warnings and advice. Broadbent is somehow menacing, pathetic and persuasive all at the same time. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 27, 2013
The satisfactions of the film are in seeing what a screen full of excellent players can do to steer you around the holes. Bana never quite seems enough to anchor a picture for me; all the same, he acquits himself sharply here. Read full review
70
SlateAisha HarrisAug 31, 2013
There are enough genuine moments of surprise to make this genre exercise an invigorating one. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 28, 2013
The director, John Crowley, handles Steve Knight’s snaky script capably, introducing the characters, their backgrounds and the political stakes in bold strokes. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 27, 2013
Trim and effective though Closed Circuit mostly is, it does fall prey to excessive contrivance from time to time, as most thrillers do. But the fact that its fictional premise dovetails nicely with what we've come to know is true is enough to hold us in our seats. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeAug 25, 2013
[A] slick, smarter-than-usual conspiracy yarn. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie OgleAug 27, 2013
It’s filmed with a sharp eye and filled with good performances. Read full review
60
Total FilmStephen KellyOct 24, 2013
It’s a slow-burning, well-acted thriller that’s only really let down in its third act: an unsatisfyingly limp denouement that fails to convey what’s at stake with any sort of suspense. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 29, 2013
Everything unfolds elegantly, understatedly. The movie is a Grisham in Le Carre clothing. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearAug 27, 2013
Old-school intrigue, informants and assassins, life-or-death pursuits in crowded places, characters who are adults and do not wear capes or pilot robots: This is pretty much what any filmgoer over the age of 13 pines for in the dog days of summer, so this courtroom melodrama/surveillance thriller should be manna. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiSep 2, 2013
The result is a dreary and derivative thriller that is nowhere near as smart or controversial as it clearly believes itself to be. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghAug 28, 2013
The end result is as dour and unilluminating as British weather. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereAug 27, 2013
Sadly, the movie’s lack of a clear identity – is it a thriller, soap, legal drama or action chase movie? – makes it difficult to understand why anyone should care. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 27, 2013
Closed Circuit is intriguing, even mildly diverting. That might have been fine for another film at another time, but in light of the here and now, this one should have been more. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 27, 2013
This is a well-made, topical thriller with a top-notch cast — but the script and the directorial/editing choices undercut nearly every pivotal scene, and every plot twist we can see coming two scenes in advance. Read full review
50
New York PostLou LumenickAug 27, 2013
A credulity-straining thriller featuring a few good paranoid moments — and, perhaps most important, Rebecca Hall running in high heels. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 27, 2013
Closed Circuit is a shaggy paranoid thriller in which conversations aren't the shorthand of people who know each other but wordy exposition for those strangers in theater seats. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoAug 27, 2013
Instead of all-seeing, it’s more like seen it all before. Read full review
50
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekAug 27, 2013
To Crowley's credit, Closed Circuit is decidedly unflashy. But maybe that's a liability: There's a fine line between restrained and drab, and Closed Circuit falls just on the wrong side of it. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsAug 27, 2013
Closed Circuit is not a tense thriller about the new era of surveillance — it's a tepid thriller about the old notion that no leader can be trusted. Read full review
50
The PlaylistGabe ToroAug 27, 2013
The sloppy reveals of the third act can be seen from miles away, turning this into a low-impact actioner where characters are turned into chess pieces, and the narrative’s aim is to strategically assemble the parts like a play set. Read full review
50
The DissolveScott TobiasAug 26, 2013
It’s a slickly packaged, proficient thriller first, political statement a distant, speck-on-the-horizon second. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreAug 26, 2013
Blame it on the weak chemistry of the stars, blame it on the way the script refuses to let them develop chemistry and the perfunctory way the story is dispensed with, but the sparks aren’t there. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberAug 25, 2013
A couple of scenes toward the end do generate the suspense that the whole movie needed. But the impact is too muted, and an air of tired familiarity ultimately curdles the entire enterprise. Read full review
45
NPRElla TaylorSep 3, 2013
Even as a fantasy about where a lack of transparency might go, left unchecked, it's storytelling informed by sloppy, absolutist thinking, and it lends one more uncritical voice to the many who seem unable to distinguish between kinds and degrees of evil. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianMarc MohanAug 28, 2013
Closed Circuit ultimately feels like a cynical attempt to capitalize on security-state anxieties while examining them in only the shallowest ways. Read full review
40
The GuardianXan BrooksOct 24, 2013
It plays as cut-price Le Carré; a recording of a recording of superior films. The picture is fuzzy, and the plot becomes garbled. Read full review
40
EmpireIan NathanOct 21, 2013
With Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things, screenwriter Steven Knight has proved his ear for London's darker rhythms. Here, though, there's little to raise the pulse. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovAug 28, 2013
Still, the revelations of evildoers clogging the corridors of power pack very little punch; we're all too aware that such malfeasance and malignity have become the status quo in the real world. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 28, 2013
The big twist to Closed Circuit is stated in the film’s TV ads, so even the element of surprise is lost. There may have been the making of a juicy, episodes-long BBC series here, but as it is, there’s barely any juice at all. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineAbhimanyu DasAug 26, 2013
It fails as a critique of draconian security states and surveillance culture, moving too fast to properly consider any of the well-worn ideas it glosses over. Read full review
30
Film.comJordan HoffmanAug 26, 2013
The whole picture is lifeless and without consequence. Read full review
25
IndieWireVadim Rizov Aug 26, 2013
Many of the problems with Closed Circuit stem from a script littered with first-draft exposition...exacerbated by unimaginative staging. Read full review
20
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonOct 22, 2013
How Knight and Crowley managed to persuade such upstanding actors – not to mention Jim Broadbent, Anne-Marie Duff, Ciaran Hinds and Riz Ahmed – to take part in this fiasco is destined to remain a mystery. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Trite. Read full review
More From This Movie

50 Critic Reviews

6.1 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL