Full Circle (2023)

Gloriously complicated and visually glorious, "Full Circle" finds director Steven Soderbergh where we often find him, nosing around the narrow fissures between good and evil, crime and justice, roguishness and upright society—and, this time, the finer distinctions between sanity and madness. All the while conjuring up a crime thriller of intelligent, infectious momentum.

While not necessarily everything feels as complete as you’d expect from a series titled Full Circle, one thing becomes crystal clear by the end: Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon absolutely belong in the world of crime dramas.

Steven Soderbergh’s complex and richly layered and beautifully filmed “Full Circle” on Max does exactly what the title promises by the time we reach the final, perfect shot of its six-episode run: It brings us full circle in a way that makes every step of the journey so worthwhile.

It’s not as ambitious as “The Knick” or crowd-pleasing as “Erin Brockovich,” “Logan Lucky,” or the “Ocean’s” movies. But it’s not trying to be. Taken as a creative twist on a tried-and-true format, it balances the experimental and the satisfying in a way TV should strive for more often.

Full Circle is a surprising and welcome entry into the ever-growing canon of prestige TV bent on disassembling white American privilege. It may be messy and uneven but, as with all things Soderbergh, is definitely worth catching.

We’re always finding out more, but doing so alongside the characters, so while these people are often deliberately obfuscating, it never feels as though the filmmakers are, and that’s key. The ace ensemble cast helps considerably in selling it.

The story unfolds, primarily in New York City, as a series of disconnected plot pieces, and the promise is that they will cohere, that, ultimately, we will understand how they’re all linked. Scene by scene, “Full Circle,” premiering July 13 on Max, delivers big time, largely thanks to Soderbergh, whose visual dynamics are wonderfully compelling.

Led by a star-studded ensemble, [Soderbergh and Solomon’s] suspenseful streaming effort rarely lets its foot off the pedal or proffers easy answers to its jagged questions.

Soderbergh and a killer cast, led by Claire Danes, Zazie Beetz and Jim Gaffigan, turn this six-part thriller about a botched kidnapping into an act of provocation that reaches deep into the roots of race and class warfare. You can't get it out of your head.

There are a few too many coincidental twists in this tale for it to be as taut as the best of the genre, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that a feature runtime would have forced a paring of the script that would have fixed this problem. But there’s so much to like here that its sins can be forgiven.

There’s a baseline of competency that comes with Soderbergh and Solomon’s decades of experience, here put in service of compelling themes like karma and the long shadow of colonialism. “Full Circle” is a minor work from a major voice, though the show completes its arc with aplomb.

With all of its crisscrossing plot points and interconnected characters, the series rarely finds the time to sit with any of those ideas long enough to fully articulate what they really mean—or to whom.

A cluttered yet compelling thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh.

It feels true to a film-maker long preoccupied with economic inequity and attempts to subvert it, though I can’t imagine many viewers will see all these underwhelming plots through to the finish.

We’re going to give Full Circle a very tentative STREAM IT, because we’ve got confidence that Solomon and Soderbergh have a way to bring these characters and stories into a tighter focus. But, boy, it might be a tough first couple of hours getting to that point.

Full Circle is an odd show. Soderbergh’s virtuosity behind the camera keeps the series compelling and you can frequently spot the elements that made Solomon want to tell this story in the first place. But in terms of the unifying values you might hope for given the series’ title and its myriad top-shelf names? Well, the storylines may come together, but Full Circle does not.

One reason the show doesn’t quite stick the landing is that we just aren’t given enough reasons to care why these things are happening to these people specifically — there’s an air of detachment in the way we cycle between these inter-connected groups, and the action feels simultaneously rushed and far too stretched out.

An impressive cast makes this HBO limited series reasonably watchable, but in this case, what goes around doesn’t completely come around.

“Full Circle,” despite a twist that spares the kidnapped teen at its center, sinks under the weight of whatever it’s trying to say about borders and bribery and the wealthy and the poor because what it’s ultimately interested in is the private agony of individual conscience.

Despite its busyness, “Full Circle” can be hard going — a sort of eventful slog. This is somewhat alleviated in later episodes, as the director dials back the stylishness and lets his characters, who have filled out a little over time, quietly converse, like reasonable people.

[Steven Soderbergh is] more equipped than the Brownes to handle multiple problems at once. But he can’t quite shape this Circle into something entirely worthy of all the talent contained within it.