360

★★★

(2011)

The fraying threads of interweaving tales are more on show than the threads themselves in Fernando Meirelles' multi layered 360. Penned by English man Peter Morgan the film takes it cues from Alejandro González Iñárittu and Guillermo Arriaga's many efforts to interconnect international lives and tragedies and from Max Ophüls' masterful La Ronde. Sadly it falls way short of the films it's trying so hard to emulate.

Morgan himself is no stranger to multi-character melodrama after his woeful script for Clint Eastwood's endlessly bland Hereafter. Meirelles of course faired way better with his never bettered City of God but together the pair make 360 feel cheep and loosely constructed despite some strong performances by Ben Foster as a recently release sex offender and the legendary Anthony Hopkins.

There's a father (Hopkins) searching for his missing daughter who meets a young Brazilian girl (Maria Flor) on a flight to USA. She's running from her phtographer boyfriend who is having an affair with an older woman (Rachel Weisz). There's the newly recruited prostitute (Lucia Siposová) and her almost brush with a british businessman (Jude Law), her hit-man pimp and his driver (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) and her bookish sister Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova). And, with the stories taking part in 6 different cities, you certainly can't criticise 360 for being short sighted.

There are some wonderful scenes including a fantastic AA speech by Hopkins and a taught scene around a grounded airport but for the most part 360 is weighed down by the drab, depressive and dishonest characters who inhabit it. Meirelles frustratingly uses comic wipes and spit screens to technically link the multitude of people but its effect is totally underwhelming and at times painfully distracting. Trying to find a purpose behind 360s themes ends up being completely redundant, especially towards the end as the one likable character Anna left, makes a completely dumb and unbelievable choice.

360 is well shot, textured, interestingly scored and at times thrillingly acted but for all of its grand scale on show, it fails to completely shine. We've seen it all before with Iñárittu's towering Babel, Paul Thomas Anderson's ingenious Magnolia Altman's Short Cuts and  the film that started it all Ophüls' adaptation of  Arthur Schnitzler's Le Ronde. Make sure you put them on your list before 360.