Circus

Collector's Edition

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Dolby Digital Trailer - Train Main Menu Animation & Audio Scene Selection Animation & Audio Cast & Crew Filmographies Featurette Cast & Crew Interviews Theatrical Trailer Deleted Scenes Audio Commentary - David Logan (Writer), James Gibb (Producer) Featurette - *B-Roll*
Rating
Year Released	2000
Running Time	91:50 Minutes
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu	Cast & Crew
Region	2,4	Director	Rob Walker
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar Home Video	Starring	John Hannah Famke Janssen Peter Stormare Eddie Izzard Fred Ward Brian Conley Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr.
Case	Soft Brackley	Starring
RPI	$36.95	Music	Simon Boswell

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English Dutch Arabic Danish Finnish Greek Bulgarian Hebrew Czech Turkish Swedish Polish Norwegian Icelandic Hungarian Hindi Dutch Audio Commentary	Annoying Product Placement	No
Subtitles		Action In or After Credits	No

Plot Synopsis

Sometimes there are films that I really dread writing a plot synopsis is for, and Circus is one of them. As a matter of fact, more than three quarters into the film's running time, I still had little to no idea of how I was going to summarize the plot, which is a worrying sign considering that I usually have a fully-formed idea of how the plot summary will read before I've even watched the film, especially if I have seen it before. So, if you find that you don't know any more about the film after reading my plot summary than you did before, put it down to the rather confusing nature of the film. It is worth noting that Circus has been bashed by critics all around as having too confusing a story, and fifty-five users on the Internet Movie Database have given it an less than encouraging rating of 4.8 out of ten.

Broadly speaking, Circus is the story of a married couple whose joint occupation is scamming people out of their money. Leo (John Hannah) is an average con-man who is connected with big-time mob bosses such as Bruno (Brian Conley), who offers him work running a casino early on in the film. His wife, Lily (Famke Janssen) is a fellow con artist who, before coming out to the UK, pulled a hilarious bank robbery with an old boyfriend named Elmo (Fred Ward) before leaving him handcuffed to the doors. Together, Leo and Lily plan to leave England for greener pastures with whatever money they can scam out of their contacts in the underworld. Unfortunately, Leo is up to his eyes in debt to a loan shark named Troy (Eddie Izzard), who is all too happy to finance Leo's poor gambling skills, provided he can pay the exorbitant debts he winds up with as a result.

To this end, Leo is approached by Julius (Peter Stormare), who promises him a rather hefty sum of money if he can rid Julius of the woman he describes as his wife. Unfortunately, this woman turns out to be merely be some woman that Julius picked up on the street one night to pose as his wife so that he could blackmail Leo. Matters go from bad to worse when Bruno's trusted bodyguard, an extremely large gentleman called Moose (Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr.), comes to Leo talking about how his beloved extra-marital partner, Gloria (Amanda Donohoe) is missing. Imagine how Leo feels when he discovers that Gloria and the woman that Julius picked up one night for the set-up turn out to be one and the same. This is where I will leave the plot summary for those who wish to dive into the film and discover the cornucopia of plot twists for themselves.

The numerous twists in the plot of this film are so dramatic and displace the story so much that it is enough to give the viewer a headache. Such was the confusion of the plot twists that the script has Leo recording a video message to Bruno that explains the storyline. After being told the same event happened three different ways for three different reasons, I was just about ready to give up and fast-forward to the ending, but watching that at normal speed soon revealed it was just as haphazardly linked to the rest of the story. If you do watch this film and work out exactly why it's called Circus, then please don't hesitate to email me and tell me why. Overall, this is a film that I would happily watch once every now and then, but I doubt it will be returning to my player with the same regularity as other thrillers based on plot twists such as Wild Things.

Transfer Quality

Video

Overall, this transfer is very good, but not as great as is the norm for Columbia Tristar transfers of such recent films.

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and it is 16x9 Enhanced. It is also Auto Pan & Scan Encoded.

The transfer is very sharp most of the time, especially in the foregrounds, but the backgrounds and night-time sequences tend to be somewhat indistinct. There are moments when the film appears to be somewhat soft and grainy, usually during indoor sequences, and the ordinary shadow detail in the night-time sequences tends to add to the problem. Thankfully, there is no low-level noise to complicate this issue.

The colour saturation is reflective of the environments in which the film was shot, with bright and vibrant colours on the beach or at Bruno's house being offset by the relatively dull schemes of Leo and Lily's home. The colours in these locations are captured perfectly by the photography, and well-retained by the transfer, with no bleeding or misregistration.

MPEG artefacts were not a problem for this transfer. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some mild wobble during one shot at 23:46, and the occasional minor display of aliasing. The aliasing was restricted to shots of chrome objects such as a heater at 5:43, a series of steel panels at 34:15, some pipes in the steel mill at 41:07, and a corrugated awning at 87:08. Film artefacts consisted of some minor to moderate black and white marks on the picture. The minor film artefacts were present maybe once or twice every ten minutes, while the film artefacts that I would describe as moderate could be totalled on a single hand.

This disc uses the RSDL format, but the layer change is well-hidden enough that I couldn't find it despite viewing the film twice in order to listen to both soundtracks.

Audio

Somewhat unusually for a Region 4 DVD, there are only two soundtracks to be found on this DVD: the original English dialogue, encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 with a bitrate of 448 kilobits per second, and an audio commentary in Dolby Digital 2.0, encoded with a bitrate of 192 kilobits per second. Having no other options, I listened to the English dialogue and the audio commentary.

The dialogue was clear and easy to understand most of the time, but some lines spoken by Famke Janssen and Jason Watkins were a little difficult to understand without subtitles. Most of the occurrences of dialogue that were hard to make out could be blamed upon the accents with which the actors speak. There were no discernible problems with audio sync.

The music in this film is credited to Simon Boswell, whom I hadn't heard of before sitting down to view this film. It is a fairly typical gangster film score, with no real distinguishing features. Your mileage may vary when you listen to this score music, but I don't recommend buying the compact disc in order to hear it at its correct pitch.

The surround channels are consistently active throughout the film, supporting the music and directional sound effects. The soundtrack is immersive enough to keep the viewer firmly focussed upon the film, with only the occasional and appropriate moments where the sound field became biased towards the front. Even the heavily dialogue-based sequences that one would expect to be front-biased were mostly well supported by the surrounds, with one or two exceptions. The subwoofer was also quite heavily and appropriately used to support the music and bass-heavy sound effects, and was well integrated into the soundfield.

Extras

At long last, we have a Columbia Tristar DVD with a Dolby Digital trailer on it other than the overloud, overlength, and ultimately annoying City trailer. The Dolby Digital Train trailer is still overloud, but it has yet to wear out its welcome.

Audio Commentary - David Logan (Writer), James Gibb (Producer)

Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, this is one of the lesser audio commentaries that I've heard. David Logan and James Gibb are not the most engaging speakers I've ever heard, and their tendency to make rather stupid jokes based on instructing the viewer to rewind the video doesn't help matters any. Most of the insights revealed in this commentary concern the script and technical processes of filming, with little in the way of comments about the actors' performances.

Cast & Crew Filmographies

Filmographies for John Hannah, Famke Janssen, Eddie Izzard, Amanda Donahoe, and director Rob Walker are provided under this submenu. They are comprehensive, but the print is small enough to require use of the zoom function in order to read them.

Featurette (6:08)

Presented Full Frame with snippets from the film in 1.85:1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, this untitled featurette is basically an extended theatrical trailer with snippets of cursory and uninteresting interview footage.

Cast & Crew Interviews

Presented under the curious heading "Soundbites", this twenty-minute featurette is presented Full Frame with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Basically a collection of interview snippets with members of the cast and crew, with titles taking the place of whomever is asking all the questions.

Theatrical Trailer

Presented Full Frame with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, this ninety-eight second theatrical trailer is equally unhelpful in trying to make sense out of the film's plot.

Deleted Scenes

Presented as an eleven minute and twenty-five second featurette in Full Frame with timing information at the bottom and a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. The resolution leaves something to be desired, and the soundtrack contains little more than dialogue. It is easy to see why these scenes were left on the cutting room floor, which makes the lack of serious plot development all the more perplexing.

Featurette - B-Roll

Presented Full Frame with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, this seven minute and forty second featurette begs the question of why film crews insist on having a camera to film the film being shot. Again, this featurette is not particularly enlightening about the making of the film, although this could have easily been remedied by some annotation or a commentary.

R4 vs R1

This film appears to be unavailable in Region 1. A Region 2 version exists, but information on what features it has is rather sketchy. From what I can tell, the only additional extra on the Region 2 version is an alternate ending, but this is hard to verify given the lack of existing reviews. If you really must have this film, stick with the local version.

Summary

Circus is a film that doesn't work for me. It needed to have another twenty minutes to further develop the plot twists. The lack of credibility surrounding the plot twists is probably the film's biggest failing. If you can look past this detail, however, the film is certainly worth watching once every now and again.

The video quality is good, let down only by occasional softness and less than perfect shadow detail.

The audio quality is very good, with only one or two instances of the sound field collapsing towards the front.

The extras are numerous, but mostly of little value.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment

DVD	Toshiba SD-2109, using S-video output
Display	Samsung CS-823AMF (80 cm) in 16:9 and 4:3 modes, calibrated using the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder	Built In (Amplifier)
Amplification	Sony STR-DE835, calibrated using the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Speakers	Yamaha NS-45 Front Speakers, Yamaha NS-90 Rear Speakers, Yamaha NS-C120 Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Active Subwoofer