By Todd Garbarini
Most big screen action films feel like
video games made for the theatres. The over-the-top, psychotically-edited films
of most of Michael Bay’s output of late, specifically the Transformer series, can attest to this fact. While the availability of inexpensive
technology that was non-existent twenty years ago has brought tools to those who
wish to push the envelope and find new and different ways to tell stories, there
is virtually no limit to how filmmakers can realize their vision. We have reached a point in our intake of
entertainment wherein movies influence video games and music videos and the
lines between these disparate forms of enjoyment are becoming ever less
defined.
Video games have experienced a surge in
popularity in recent years thanks in part to high definition graphics, powerful
home computers and gaming systems, and the ability to play against complete
strangers several miles away or across the globe. One of
the most profitable series is the Grand
Theft Auto game from Rock Star Games, a company that has received flack for
their violent and sexual content. The
game literally puts the player (or perpetrator, depending upon your point of
view) in the driver seat to navigate a dangerous city plagued by vagrants and
social undesirables. Your mission is to
commit as many crimes as possible as a means to an end. The graphics are high quality and the people
are very realistic. It is this style of
video game animation that has taken center stage in the terrific new film by Pasha
Roberts called Silver Circle.
Set in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. in 2019,
the same year as Ridley Scott’s Blade
Runner (1982), Silver Circle
concerns a world where inflation has run rampant following the financial
collapse of the United States. A beer
costs $90.00 and a gallon of gas averages $152.00, so $7.00 for a buzz and
$3.59 for the precious juice no longer sounds like such a bad deal. But, it’s all relative. Pot has been legal since 2016 (apparently the
war on drugs, a roughly $500 billion a year enterprise, is no longer a top
priority), the same year that silver and gold was outlawed, and the Federal
Reserve, referred to only as The Fed (much like Big Brother) is the country’s
third attempt at a centralized banking system and it simply isn’t working. Desperate attempts by the aforementioned entity
to stabilize the economy via printing worthless paper money with nothing to
back it up except waning public trust is proving disastrous while managing home
prices has similar effects.
Jay, an arson investigator, is brought in
to determine the party responsible for the destruction of several homes in the Glenwood
Homes subdivision which is the property of the Strategic Housing Reserve. He meets the lead realtor at the Cornwall
Real Estate office and is intrigued by her assistant, Zoe, who agrees to meet
with him later and give him some information off the record. Their meeting proves to be fortuitous as Jay
is saved by Zoe when he is ambushed by henchmen looking to throw him off the
case. Zoe gives chase in her
mini-automobile that would make William Friedkin smile, effectively losing the
bad guys. She clearly has some sort of expert
training that the average realtor assistant would be oblivious to. It turns out that Zoe is a part of a group
that call themselves The Rebels who illegally mint tangible, silver coins (hence
the film’s title) in the hopes of stabilizing the financial health of the
country.
While it might be easy to dismiss Silver Circle as just a story told
through the unorthodox platform of video game animation, the film’s message is
very real and serious and most certainly topical. Unlike contemporary action films that hit the
audience over the head with cuts so fast that there is little time to process, Silver Circle moves at a much more visually
manageable pace. It’s a film that has a
message, and it manages to both entertain and inform the audience. The film’s greatest strength lies in getting
the audience to think instead of just veg-out.
The film will begin touring the country starting
in New York on Friday, March 22nd. Click here on the film’s
official website to see where it is playing and read more about the film, the
characters, and the talented animators who brought Silver Circle to life.