The Circle

Road-kill stew of Sculls (2000), Cheaters (2000/I) and Scent of a woman (1992)(the end)- spiced with some ingredients from Dead Poets Society (1989). It does not help that Robin Dunne resembles Joshua Jackson. Horrible music.

What a boring movie. Leaves one wondering if there ever was an initial storyline. I expected a sleeper. The only sleeper was me, half way through it! Don't waste your time or money on this dog. I usually enjoy Treat Williams. Not even he could save the fraternity of bad writing and acting. Don't waste your time.

Well written movie, that keeps you guessing the whole way...treat williams always is good. This film could have had a big budget, but is shot with moody, gritty style. The story line could seem derivative but is actually quite original and although unusual is totally viable and redefines the genre....The film plot runs through a gamut of possibilities in the prep schools potential cast of characters who could have been the culprit of what looked like an accident, then potentially a suicide and yet turns out to be foul play...The school is really run by a powerful CIA type group of unknown students that maintain justice in the school...Director Sydney Furie is a legend and knew how to shoot this project. The screenwriter clearly put a good deal of time into working out the storyline...

On the surface, this looks like it might be an edgy or gritty drama about the seedy underside of prep school. What it ends up being is another nearly pointless exercise in bad writing, hack acting, overly melodramatic devices, and just plain goofiness. The plot has holes so big that you can drive a truck, no make that a train, through them. Everyone here is sleazy in some way or another, including our group of heroes, who are cheats and bullies. But then I guess they are okay compared to the real baddies, who are killers and transvestites. What a giant load of ****, and the thing that was fun was to see just how ludicrous, silly and offensive it could get. As one example of many, we have here a group of 5 students who secretly run the whole school through wiretaps, night heists, and coercion. Yeah, that's easy to believe! It ought to have been called Mafia Prep Academy.

first i would like to debunk some of the negative reviews. people have written some of the following: the music was bad, the acting was bad, the story was confusing and hard to follow, and there are more. I thought the music was superb, and it really aided the movie. the acting was excellent and everyone was well cast. treat was flawless in his performance as Spencer runcie the headmaster of the school and reminded me of Michael Douglas. Robin Dunne stars as the main character, Alex who is sort of playing the role of a sherlock Holmes on campus trying to figure out all the loose ends of the tragic events taking place at runcie academy. he does an awesome job in this role and narrating throughout the movie.

the story for me was confusing when i first saw it only because i was not following it closely enough and paying attention to which character was which. this does not discredit the writing but is actually the fault of the viewer. now after seeing the film a couple more times i can understand what is happening and actually it is a positive aspect of the film that it takes a bit of your mind to understand what is happening. it is brilliantly written. i cant understand why people say it is a copy of this or that film, the only similarity is that it is in a prep school but it clearly is much different from dead poet's society or school ties and takes place many years later, it's a completely different film. i have to mention the actresses playing Tess and the female detective are both beautiful and add to the film this is the kind of movie that you can watch again and again like I do with other favorites eyes wide shut, the game, and what lies beneath. the setting is also interesting in the winter time. so all in all the different elements of this film come together to make it a masterpiece. i guess we all have different opinions and thats an interesting thing too.