Circus

Some movies are so determined to be different, sexy, stylish and surprising that their countless contrivances become painfully transparent and end up boring. In this British thriller, scripted by much touted up-comer David Logan, the insistent cynicism, the emphatically colourful villains and dialogue, the eye-grabbing Brighton settings, and most of all the relentlessly labyrinthine plotting soon forfeit emotional involvement. When you know for sure there's yet another shock twist coming in a minute, it's no longer unexpected. Moreover, the déjà vu extends beyond the tiresome eventfulness of the narrative to the way it's utterly imitative in the post-Tarantino vein. Hannah is a chess-playing chancer and gambler in with the local mob who agrees to kill Stormare's wife to finance his own dream of a new life abroad with wife Janssen. Things go awry, everyone's at war. Oh, and some of them are lying.