How close to other products by Focus Features is 'Misjudged’?

Closed Circuits

PlotA massive car bomb at Borough Market leaves a hundred dead and a suspect in the hands of the British legal system. But with MI5 muscling in and the Attorney General (Broadbent) demanding a closed trial, defending QCs Martin Rose (Bana) and Claudia Simmons-Howe (Hall) sense that the odds are stacked against them. Then there's their own mutual past...

Closed Circuits

Review

Don't be hoodwinked by the Orwellian chill of the title; London’s surveillance network barely features in John Crowley’s pedestrian courtroom thriller. Events hinge around a wrinkle of British law — that two barristers are required to defend an immigrant accused of bombing Borough Market. One handles the client, the other carries evidence stymied by the State Secrets Act. Contact between them is forbidden, except these two are former lovers... Cue: frantic pay-as-you-go pow-wows while being chased between Soho lock-ups, as Closed Circuit labours through its joyless ‘thought-provoking’ posturing.

Closed Circuits

VerdictWith Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things, screenwriter Steven Knight has proved his ear for London's darker rhythms. Here, though, there's little to raise the pulse.

• Focus Features distributed this film which has a narrative based around a terrorist organisation.

• This film is very similar to MISJUDGED and we would like the success that focus features bought to Closed Circuits to also present within our film.

• Focus Features gave Closed Circuits success with their ability to market and advise the product.

Closed CircuitsWhat features from ‘Closed Circuits’ we incorporated into ‘Misjudged’

•We really liked the element of mystery which is present throughout the film with lack of knowledge your given about each character

•The contrasts between the shots within the opening sequence is good, it makes the action sequence more dramatic, we tried to use similar lighting

What ‘Closed Circuits’ did better than us

•The element of surprise works really well within this film, it isn't obvious what is going to happen throughout the film, we could have liked to have included this within our film but this was difficult to convey within an opening sequence

•The opening sequence focused less on character building and more on theme setting, this worked really well and we could of done this if making ‘Misjudged’ into a feature length film.

The debt

Plot

Berlin, 1965. A trio of young Mossad agents is assigned to track down a wanted Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen). But while the mission seemingly ends in triumph with the three heroes killing their target, the truth is something quite different. And in 1997, the past comes back to haunt them.

THE DEBT

Review

The Debt raises questions of living with a lie and of adhering to the cynical dictum enunciated in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." But it deals with them in an unsatisfactorily factitious way as Rachel, Stephan and David, now middle-aged and played by Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds in 1997 Tel Aviv, face the consequences of their terrible deceit. One does not want to give away too much, or indeed any, of the subsequent plot, but it is dramatically unconvincing and morally unsatisfactory. It's also a pity that Mirren, Wilkinson and Hinds carry little resemblance to their younger selves save for the jagged scar on Rachel's right cheek.

THE DEBT

VerdictA smart, tense, well-acted thriller undercut by a disappointing finale and an occasional lack of focus. But at least this offers something for those looking for a film with more on its mind than simple set-pieces.

• Focus Features distributed this film

• This film is very similar to MISJUDGED and we would like the success that focus features bought to THE DEBT to also present within our film.

• Focus Features gave THE DEBTsuccess with their ability to market and advise the product.

The debt

Features from ‘The Debt’ we incorporated into ‘Misjudged’

•Pacing of the opening sequence

•Protagonist turning bad

•Interrogation scene

•Contrasting lighting

What ‘The Debt’ did better than us

•More violent interrogation – with actors consent

Interrogator was more brutal

•Used a birds eye shot to establish the interrogation location