360

This is an international cast directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God) of a marginally-connected multiple-plots. They all deal with sex and lust in some way. Sisters Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova) and Mirka (Lucia Siposová) are in Vienna where Mirka is starting as a call girl named Blanca. British businessman Michael Daly (Jude Law) has made an appointment with Blanca but he runs into some vendors looking to doing business. He immediately abandons the appointment, but one of the sleazy vendors finds out his appointment and blackmails him for his business. Michael's wife Rose (Rachel Weisz) has an affair with photographer Rui (Juliano Cazarré). Rui's girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor) dumps him and she travels back home. Laura meets John (Anthony Hopkins) on the flight and she learns that he is looking for his missing daughter. On a stop-over, sex offender Tyler (Ben Foster) has just been released and is tempted by aggressive Laura in her hotel room.

There are a couple other story lines. Some are interesting. Most notably is Ben Foster and his powerful performance. Others are boring as hell. When Jude Law gets blackmailed, I thought that storyline had potential but it completely fizzled. That's how I feel about this movie. I thought it had potential, but other than a couple of sections, there was very little realized.

360 is the film that "Crash" wanted to be. Unlike the overt manipulations of "Crash", 360 is a slow burn with a deft sleight of hand.

Rather than leading you along with neon coloured sign-posts, lets your mind do a lot of the driving. Shot in a muted, bluish pallet, the gorgeous cinematography captures the attention, while your imagination is allowed to build up steam. It doesn't demand your attention, it flirts with it. I found that refreshing.

The first few plot twists put my brain was on alert, trying to predict where the stories would lead. All the while the tension built, waiting for the axe to fall or the excrement hit the fan.

A few people have complained that 360 was slow and boring and left story lines unfinished. But that is what made it such a good film for me, it took its time and avoided clichés. The characters were neither good nor bad, they simply struggled. Some triumph and some fall, but none are unchanged.

It isn't without faults, nothing with intertwined stories can avoid some contrivance. But it didn't fall prey to the imagined demand of the audience, that everything resolve neatly. Some plots twist and turn until the very end, some evaporate like mist in the light of hearts restored while others end badly.

I can understand how the film's pacing might annoy if you aren't in the mood but if you are prepared to be a bit patient and to do some of the work, 360 is a rare treat.

360 (2011)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Director Fernando Meirelles' latest takes place in seven cities as a wide range of people with different backgrounds are thrown into difficult decisions due in some way to sex. A Russian (Gabriela Marcinkova) woman decides to turn to prostitution; an older man (Anthony Hopkins) searches for his daughter who is missing; a sex offender (Ben Foster) is released from prison and fears he's going to commit another crime; a married man (Jude Law) thinks about having an affair while a married woman (Rachel Weisz) tries to end her affair. 360 actually delivers what the title promises as the story really does go full circle but the entire ride through it isn't nearly as entertaining as I was hoping. There's no question that there are some good stories scattered throughout but by the time the end credits came I felt that there really wasn't a point to any of them. The funny thing is that while each character here gets several bits of development, all of the stories pretty much end without anything ever being solved so the viewer is left to wonder what will happen or if they'll be connected in some sort of way. I think one of the problems with a film like this is that the great stories don't get enough time while the more boring ones feel unfinished or you wish that they'd get to another story. The best one here is the sex offender as we get a terrific and very intense story as the man feels he's about to relapse and commit another crime. Foster's performance is right on the money and downright chilling. The Jude Law sequence really doesn't add up to much and the twist his character takes from a rival really isn't all that interesting. The stuff dealing with the prostitute was actually quite interesting as was the piece with Hopkins and his relationship with a young woman (Maria Flor). Both Hopkins and Flor deliver strong performances that help their stories. 360 is directed with style and there's no doubt that it's a well made film but there's still too many frustrating or weak things that keep it from being a good movie.

Movies linking different stories taking place all over the world are usually are praised for the interweaving plot coming together with some big revelation. Think about Babel, universally praised for mixing intercontinental tragedy. I liked it moderately, as it was a bit too gloomy, and I would not put it in my top-ten list.

On the other hand, 360 working on a similar take, was vilified almost unanimously. On a different merry-go-round we have the stories of an English businessman ready to stray with a prostitute in Vienna, while his wife is already straying in London with a Brazilian guy, whose fiancée is dumping him for said infidelity and traveling back home, etc… Since the prostitute is having her photos taken by a photographer for her online advert, the movie starts and finishes with a girl entering the study, thus coming round 360 degrees. A couple of stories are quite weak, such as the Brazilian girl meeting a sex offender en route to Brazil and the prostitute's sister running away with a stranger. However, compared to Babel what is missing here is mega tragedy and that is exactly what made Babel so pretentious, with its existentialist grandeur.

Therefore, I liked 360 better because its characters are more "normal" – except, perhaps, the Russian mobsters – and their lives are not experiencing huge calamities. They just change or adjust slightly. I guess that was not liked by the critics (and public). Nowadays, a level of extra-drama seems to be required in ever massive doses to relieve with excitement our numbed existences … at least for a couple of hours.

"A wise man once said if there's a fork in the road take it." This is a movie that deals with many different characters from different parts of the world from different social classes and how they deal with day to day problems from doing anything to earn money to getting stranded while traveling. The cast in this, which includes: Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Foster is great and honestly the cast is the best part of the movie. I used to think that a great cast automatically means that it will be a great movie, but after the last 4 or 5 movies I have seen based off the cast I am beginning to rethink my opinion. The acting is great in this and the story lines basically end up being tied together I guess but the movie is just so slow moving that it makes it really hard to stay interested in. The movie is pretty OK but for me this is another example of a great cast in a sub-par movie. Overall, very slow moving drama that is really only worth seeing because of the cast. I give it a C+.