Circle of Pain

I'm not really much of a Mixed Martial Arts fan to tell the truth. I watch professional wrestling (a man deserves his guilty pleasures, okay?) and I had a passing interest in Mixed Martial Arts in my teen years, but that's it. So I'm not really aware of "Tapout" or whatever it is, other than the fact that 1.) I see guys wearing "Tapout"shirts in town (and I've seen them in Wal Mart) and 2.) That they've released several Straight to DVD movies via Lionsgate, those purveyors of bad exploitation trash on DVD. So It was only a matter of time until I watched one of these movies, and I decided to go with "Circle of Pain", which while better than other "Tapout Presents..." ventures, is still a terrible movie.

Dalton Hunt (Tony Schiena) is a retired fighter whose been living a quiet life. Thing is, Colin "The Brick" Wahle (Heath Herring) is about to beat his record. So thanks to his pal Wyatt (Dean "I was Superman and now I can't get a role worth a damn" Cain) that he put in a wheelchair and the villainous director of a MMA company named Victoria Rualan (Bai Ling) telling him he has to, Dalton must come out of retirement to battle Wahle.

One of the things that's really noteworthy about "Circle of Pain" (and other "Tapout Presents..." movies") is how cheap the whole thing looks. The production values aren't exactly shot on video bad, but they essentially resemble those of a soft core skin flick. Also notable is that like it's predecessors, the movie suddenly becomes something of a soft core flick, with sex scenes thrown in for no reason whatsoever other than to pad out time. Apart from that, little if anything stands out in this movie, which is amateurishly directed by Daniel Zirilli, features few if any invigorating fight or action scenes, and is guilty of false advertising (the movie advertises Kimbo Slice as the star, but he's only in the film for two scenes.) Also, the acting is (as expected) terrible. Look, people pay to watch these guys beat the tar out of each other, not for their acting skills (though Herring at least seems to be having fun.) Dean Cain (who must curse the name of Terri Hatcher every day of his life) in particular is bad, seeming to be bored and uninterested as if he's only doing this for the paycheck. Hell, the only reason this isn't getting a 0/10 is because of Bai Ling. An underrated actress (with credits including "The Crow", "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and "The Beautiful Country"), she seems to know what kind of movie this is, and plays the villain to a hammy T, delivering the only fun performance in the movie.

As a whole, there is not reason whatsoever to watch "Circle of Pain", which doesn't feel like something made for MMA fans as much as it feels like a cheap cash grab. I do wish that Tapout and Lionsgate would stop releasing these movies, but it's obviously not going to happen anytime soon.

I was never expecting an epic movie prior to watching "Circle of Pain", just an average, simplistic yet entertaining action movie. However, this film does not prove solid enough to provide viewers with an entertaining movie experience.

Firstly, the acting is never anything above average and the fight scenes are poorly constructed, therefore the action sequences are never more than mildly entertaining. Furthermore, all of the characters are very forgettable so, as a viewer, I never really cared about the outcome of the film (despite of the fact I expected and received little more than a collaboration of tedious clichés that dictated the direction of the mundane plot).

In addition to this, the script is incredibly cheesy and destroys any kind of seriousness or tension within the movie; it is very difficult to take this movie seriously.

Overall, if you are a HUGE fan of MMA movies and can tolerate a trashy script and substandard acting, this unoriginal, basic fight film will not be the worst piece of cinema you've spent your time to view. If you did not fit this category... Look elsewhere, perhaps at something like "Never Back Down".

This film looks like it was filmed and written in a day. Ridiculous 'action' scenes, dialogue that must have been written by a 10 year old, truly awful music that didn't fit any scene and 'acting' that defies belief. When Dean Cain is head and shoulders the best actor in it you know you have reached the bottom of the lowest barrel. And even this is his worst performance by some margin.

It begs the question who is this film aimed at? My kids sort of liked it but they are way below the 15 age rating, so if that is the target audience why the nudity and bad language? I fail to believe that anyone with half a brain over the age of 13 would enjoy this joke of a film.

Without doubt this in the top 5 most pathetic movies I have ever watched, if not the most pathetic. Not one redeeming feature could be found except mercy of mercies it is a short film and for that I was truly truly grateful.

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I AM A MMA fan and I also fight. (female fighter btw). Anyway, Mixed Martial Arts Movies are not always the best and this was one more bad movie to add to the file. However,I must confess, the action and fight scenes in the movie did have me cringing. Cringing in a good way because they were very believable and real. Its not surprising that REAL fighters were used and most did not seem to be pulling punches either. By pulling punches, I just mean, they were not stunt choreographed fight scenes where "pretend" punches and kicks were placed. Sure, some of them HAD to be faked but most...were not. That was the ONE cool thing about this movie. Besides this, the camera angles were HORRIBLE and the acting just as bad. The HD camera being used to film this wasn't so bad but the editing sucked and these things combines made the look of the film cheap and hard to watch. After about 25 mins...you really just want to turn the sad thing off! I would not pay money to rent this nor would i watch it on TV for more than the aforementioned time frame. Might be worth it if you are doing a bit of training on the side and just want to pick up some super cool street fighting moves...lol:P

I saw that Kimbo Slice was going to be in this movie so I thought I would take some time to watch it and see his acting skills, but holy cow its bad his role in the film is no more then 5 min I'm not a huge Kimbo fan but he is on the main cover. The acting is was I could not get passed in this movie and the whole good vs bad is to typical for this film. There was no surprise how this film would end. The fighting scenes are way overacted and I believe this comes from the fact that they are using real UFC fighters for this film and not actors. I gave this film 3 stars just for the fact that the plot is not clever nor is the acting good.