The political unrest and assassinations of the 1960s, culminating in the Watergate scandal, provided fertile ground for paranoid thrillers, from “The Parallax View” to “Chinatown” to “Klute.”
It says something about the state of contemporary filmmaking that a global trauma like 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror has led to a spate of such mediocre films as “Rendition,” “Lions for Lambs,” “Body of Lies” and “Traitor.” (Quick: Can you remember anything about any of these movies without looking them up on IMDB?)
Toss “Closed Circuit” on the remainder pile with these other forgettable movies. It’s a story that means to shock us with a tale of wrongdoings and cover-ups at the highest levels, but in this post-Edward Snowden/Chelsea Manning era, does any government-sanctioned chicanery come as a real surprise anymore?
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If the movie had bothered to craft some memorable characters or dialogue or situations, this lack of urgency might not feel so pronounced.