Media

Home Theater Movie Renter's Guide - March, 2012

"Columbus Circle" (Blu-ray) - Reviewed by Chris Heinonen

Synopsis

Abigail Clayton (Selma Blair) lives alone. Very alone. In fact, the heiress has not left her Manhattan apartment for almost two decades. When the death of her elderly neighbor prompts NYPD Homicide Detective Frank Giardello (Giovanni Ribisi) to launch an investigation, the agoraphobic Abigail is distressed to find him outside her door, questioning her. Having tried to acquire the now vacant apartment to ensure her privacy, Abigail is further upset when new tenants Lillian (Amy Smart) and Charlie (Jason Lee) move in. Abigail anxiously monitors her new neighbors from the safety of her front door's peephole, but her well-ordered world begins to unravel when she finally encounters Lillian and Charlie face-to-face and her sheltered existence becomes threatened in unexpected and terrifying ways.

Commentary

Columbus Circle is one of those movies that gets made, and then seems to sit around and never be released, and then shows up for sale at your store one day.  Set up as a thriller, Columbus Circle seems to give away all of its secrets in the first 10 minutes, then spends the rest of the running time pretending that you can't figure it out.  The characters act ridiculously, and act in ways that no one in their positions would. The ending, which seems to be setup as a great "gotcha", is both implausible and totally laughable, but really is no different than the rest of the film.  Unfortunately one movie that I am certain I will never sit down to watch again.

Technical

The image in Columbus Circle is decent, but not great.  Sometimes there are nice textures and detail, and sometimes it is a bit soft and lacking in details.  Black levels were sometimes a bit higher that I expected them to be, but overall contrast was decent.  The soundtrack was the best part of the film, with decent use of surrounds and clear, intelligible dialogue throughout.

Extras

There is nothing on the disc, not even a trailer.  Just a lot of previews at the beginning that you need to skip over.

DLP

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