360

Plot synopsis:
360 centers on the stories of a group of people from different social backgrounds through their intertwining relationships.
=== Vienna ===
Anna (Gabriela Marcinková) accompanies her sister to a photo-shoot, where her older sister Mirka (Lucia Siposová) is photographed nude by Rocco (Johannes Krisch), for an escort services website. Anna is hesitant about what Mirka is doing but goes along with it. There is a voiceover talking about how choices bring one to their current place in life. Rocco persuades Mirka to change her name into a more professional one, to which she chooses Blanca. While taking photos, Rocco tells Mirka how one of the girls got rich just the other day when she found out a client had lots of money with him and called Rocco. Rocco came and took the money, killing the client and splitting the cash with the girl. Mirka asks Rocco when her picture will be up on the site and he tells her there are lots of girls and that it could happen sooner. Mirka looks at Anna and tells her to wait downstairs. Unhappily, Anna complies. Later, Mirka comes down and they silently walk to the bus terminal. They return home on a bus to Bratislava where Anna comments on how Mirka should work more on her English. Rocco calls Mirka and tells her she will meet a client named Michael Daly (Jude Law) in Vienna the next day. She goes to Vienna, in the company of Anna and enters the restaurant of a hotel to meet her client. However, one of Michael's business associates looks on his phone to find out if she is a prostitute and start debating loudly whether she has been stood up by her client. Michael pretends to not know her and leaves. He goes to a small restaurant and calls his wife, leaving her multiple affectionate voice messages. Back in his hotel room, he receives a call from his business associate, who informs him that he talked to Blanca, and found out about Michael having ordered her, and blackmails him into accepting a business deal.
=== Paris ===
An Algerian man (Jamel Debbouze) spies on a woman wearing a red beret since leaving her home and on her way to the airport. It is clear that he has feelings for the mysterious woman but can't express how he feels. The next scene shows him talking to an imam about his feelings for the woman, and he further pursues her despite knowing that she is already married. He then goes to his mosque and also to a therapist and asks for advice on what to do about his life.
=== London ===
Rose (Rachel Weisz) strolls around the streets, unaware that a seemingly distraught woman is taking pictures of her. It turns out that Rose is headed to a hotel and meets up with a man named Rui (Juliano Cazarre) she is having an affair with. Although she tells him they must end the affair, Rose is still affected by his charm and they end up having sex. After the encounter, they part ways. Rui goes home to find his girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor), but he is rocked when he finds out she has left him. He opens the computer and watches a video she made for him; it turns out the woman who took pictures of Rose earlier is his girlfriend. Meanwhile, at Rose's house, we learn that she is married to Michael Daly, who had planned the liaison in Vienna. He's come home, and both of them then head out to their daughter's school play that night and tend to her after she forgets her lines. Later in bed, Rose then recalls Michael's voice messages the previous night, saying that he misses her and that he wished she could be there with him. He tells her that his next trip will probably be to Berlin. Rose exclaims that she has never been to Berlin and would love to go.
=== Colorado ===
Sex offender Tyler (Ben Foster) is being released after being imprisoned for six years, and is afraid he's not ready to face life in the outside world due to his temptations. Meanwhile, Laura boards a flight back to Brazil and gets to know an elderly man sitting next to her named John (Anthony Hopkins) who is searching for his missing daughter who ran away many years ago. They are both stranded in Denver due to bad weather. Meanwhile, Tyler speaks on the phone with the social worker about his stressful situation outside and how he could not control himself from his attraction. He and Laura bump into each other when Laura inadvertently sits at his table in a restaurant at the airport. However, they start a conversation when the drinks she has ordered for her and John are served. Laura seems attracted to Tyler and ends up offering him to stay with her in her hotel room. The intoxicated Laura then makes sexual advances toward him and asks him to kiss her. Instead Tyler controls himself and rebuffs her, locking himself in the bathroom.
The next day, John finds Laura who is about to board her connecting flight. They both tell how it was a pleasure meeting one another. Laura hugs John in a daughterly manner, which affects him. John arrives in Phoenix to examine in the morgue the unidentified remains which could be his daughter, but it turns out to be someone else. John later says in an AA meeting how he can finally accept his daughter's fate, whatever that might have been, and is willing to move on and let go. Next, a foreign woman named Valentina (Dinara Drukarova), just visiting Phoenix, shares her own story, where we learn that she was the same woman the Algerian man spied on back in Paris (unbeknownst to her). She speaks about her husband, Sergei, who is too consumed with his job working for a crooked Russian businessman, to love her anymore. She says that she will plan to divorce him. She has feelings for another, her boss, and she is secretly in love with.
=== Back in Paris ===
Valentina goes back home to her career-driven Russian husband named Sergei (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) where she informs him she wants a divorce and how she is interested in someone else, but Sergei ignores her complaint and leaves. He drives away towards Vienna while Valentina prepares herself to look attractive, then goes to work in a dental clinic. Her boss, the Algerian man, is the dentist. He is quite nervous around her, making clumsy mistakes and errors. It's clear they both have feelings for each other, but they repress them. He then talks to her privately and, without telling her why, he suggests it would be better if she looked for another job. Valentina is confused and sad, but leaves nonetheless and is seen walking away, without the red beret this time, her boss watching her from the window.
=== Back in Vienna ===
Sergei fetches his boss from the airport and is treated harshly by him. His boss reprimands him when he learns he is learning English and states that it's irrelevant. Mirka and Anna are also riding a bus going to Vienna for another client of Mirka. Sergei stops Mirka on the street in front of the hotel and tells her she is here for his boss. He searches her and then tells her to go to the boss' hotel room. While lingering outside, Anna comes across Sergei, and they chat a bit. When it starts to rain he lets her into his boss's car. They start to develop a friendly relationship from their mutual love for books and learning English. Anna then persuades the ill-treated Sergei to drive around the city.
Back at the hotel, Mirka lets the boss know his time is up. She offers to stay for more money and he shows her a briefcase full of cash. Remembering Rocco's story from the photo shoot, Mirka texts Rocco while ordering from room service. While having Mirka perform fellatio, Sergei's boss reads Mirka's phone and discovers she has texted someone. Realizing she is involved in robbing him, he knocks Mirka unconscious and calls Sergei. When Sergei picks up his call, his boss tells him to come protect him in the hotel. Rocco and Sergei are in the elevator together and Sergei holds back watching Rocco go to his boss' door. The boss calls Sergei and Sergei tricks his boss into thinking he's at the door when in fact it's Rocco. The boss opens the door and a fight ensues. Sergei then leaves the hotel and picks Anna up and they drive away together, she reading to him. At no time is she aware Sergei was acting as 'enforcer' for his boss. Mirka regains consciousness after the attack, sees both the boss and Rocco on the floor, empties the briefcase of the money, and leaves the hotel. In voiceover, you hear Anna reading a goodbye letter to her sister using the same phrasing as at the beginning of the film.

Tags: murder

Review:
Too bad, because in other parts of the movie the extremes--such as a prostitute getting started through sleazy photographer listing her on the web, even though she has zero experience--get pulled off with conviction.
Not that most of us know the ins and outs of that world.There are too many characters to make things clear here, but it's worth saying that Anthony Hopkins again shows how he can command a scene like no one else in the film.
His monologue at an AA meeting is a short masterpiece, and his performance in general is almost enough to justify seeing the film all by itself.Other characters are excellent, including Jude Law in a restrained part as a married businessman looking for some action on the road.
It even includes many cases of split screens reaching three or four simultaneous panels at times.You start to see how the world works for some people in a contemporary way.
The director, Fernando Meirelles, is ambitious, for sure, but he made of the most highly regarded films of recent years, "City of God," so this is worth watching even just for that connection.
After some clicking things started to unfold: the same author directed City of God and the movie is a loose adaptation of one Arthur Schnitzler's play.
Although i can't say much about the latter, the former impressed me even more since i've enjoyed that movie, as well.The cast is brilliant with famous actors popping in and out of view and blending discreetly with otherwise great performance of less known colleagues.
This time Meirelles brings us a beautiful concocted plan where some aspects of daily life are put into context, mixing different Nationalities and aspirations, dreams and sometimes tragedies that come together full circle, as the title itself states.
Some plots twist and turn until the very end, some evaporate like mist in the light of hearts restored while others end badly.I can understand how the film's pacing might annoy if you aren't in the mood but if you are prepared to be a bit patient and to do some of the work, 360 is a rare treat..
The Cast are made up of fine actors from around the world and headed by sympathetic and unshowy performances from Anthony Hopkins, Rachel Weisz and Jude Law. Ensemble films like this don't always work, but in the hands of a master director such as Meirelles, Peter Morgan's script comes to life in a vivid and evocative way.
Movies linking different stories taking place all over the world are usually are praised for the interweaving plot coming together with some big revelation.
On a different merry-go-round we have the stories of an English businessman ready to stray with a prostitute in Vienna, while his wife is already straying in London with a Brazilian guy, whose fiancée is dumping him for said infidelity and traveling back home, etc Since the prostitute is having her photos taken by a photographer for her online advert, the movie starts and finishes with a girl entering the study, thus coming round 360 degrees.
A couple of stories are quite weak, such as the Brazilian girl meeting a sex offender en route to Brazil and the prostitute's sister running away with a stranger.
Taking as its, admittedly uncredited, source Arthur Schnitzler's play "Reigen", screen-writer Peter Morgan and director Fernando Meirelles' 360 combines several stories in something of the disjointed manner of Inarritu's "Amores Perros" or "Babel".
Still, there is at least one thing about this film that is great and it occurs whenever Anthony Hopkins is on screen.
As can he guessed from the title, the film is called 360 because the stories go full circle; if only they had been better this film might have been as great as something like "Amores Perros" or "Pulp Fiction" which were constructed in much the same way.
The film immediately grabbed my attention, and the longer into the movie the more interesting it gets.
Bratislava, Paris, London, Phoenix, Colorado...He film is full of such strong actors and performances that it's almost a reason of it's on to watch this movie.
Brilliant cast, brilliantly instructed.When this film doesn't get a 10 from me is only because I wanted to know more about the ones we weren't seeing in the end.
What a screenplay writer!A gem if you like a mosaic of life story, well acted, but far from a popcorn movie.
360 falls flat with a lame storyline though it assembles some of the finest actors - needless to say all of them wasted - and for a thread about human connections and relations, it leaves a lot to be desired in the end.The making style, the narration and the editing were good, but the screenplay had nothing new to offer, seen all of them and many of these characters and plots else where - Magnolia, crash, 96 minutes, traffic, Nine lives to name a few.
I mean where's the novelty in showing interlocking stories of characters in pursuit of money, sex, love which have been told a million times!
In London, Rose (Rachel Weisz) ends her love affair with the Brazilian photographer Rui (Juliano Cazarré) but they have sex for the last time.
Their lives are entwined and life goes on."360" is not a bad movie and would be great if it were an independent production; but considering the director, the cast and the budget, it is but pointless and deceptive despite the fake reviews promoting this film.Maybe the best subplot is the story of the aspiring prostitute that ends with her dream coming true.
"A wise man once said if there's a fork in the road take it." This is a movie that deals with many different characters from different parts of the world from different social classes and how they deal with day to day problems from doing anything to earn money to getting stranded while traveling.
The cast in this, which includes: Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Foster is great and honestly the cast is the best part of the movie.
The acting is great in this and the story lines basically end up being tied together I guess but the movie is just so slow moving that it makes it really hard to stay interested in.
This film is about a married couple, and the people linked to them through their respective infidelity."360" is an artistic film that tells the live stories of may different individuals, loosely linked with Jude Law and Rachel Weisz.
The movie has good character development but the downside is that the beginning of the film is slow due to the nature that the characters are built.
If you are a fan of the cast or the type of development that occurred in the movie Crash, you will like this work.
360 (2011) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Director Fernando Meirelles' latest takes place in seven cities as a wide range of people with different backgrounds are thrown into difficult decisions due in some way to sex.
A Russian (Gabriela Marcinkova) woman decides to turn to prostitution; an older man (Anthony Hopkins) searches for his daughter who is missing; a sex offender (Ben Foster) is released from prison and fears he's going to commit another crime; a married man (Jude Law) thinks about having an affair while a married woman (Rachel Weisz) tries to end her affair.
The funny thing is that while each character here gets several bits of development, all of the stories pretty much end without anything ever being solved so the viewer is left to wonder what will happen or if they'll be connected in some sort of way.
I think one of the problems with a film like this is that the great stories don't get enough time while the more boring ones feel unfinished or you wish that they'd get to another story.
360 is directed with style and there's no doubt that it's a well made film but there's still too many frustrating or weak things that keep it from being a good movie..
Some story lines, such as Hopkins' search for his lost daughter could have been explored more deeply, on the contrary it remains faded like the other stories.Nothing to say against shooting, the use of split scenes is effective and tries to underline the idea of interconnections, and the subtle use of camera tries to make the characters' personalities come out, but in the end do not make up for a general underdevelopment.
There isn't a clear enough main plot line and there are just too many distractions in it with characters that by the end add absolutely nothing to the story and let this movie go nowhere.
You just keep waiting for this movie to do something clever, which will connect all of the different story lines or makes them come together by the end of it.
Characters disappear and story lines just end, without wrapping things up properly.This movie might still sound good on paper but the execution of it is far too lacking.Director Fernando Meirelles really did a poor job with its storytelling and at trying to get its point across.
There is just no good reason to watch this movie, though it's still far from the worst thing you'll ever see.What also annoyed me about this movie were the many different languages spoken in it.
Each are given an equal amount of screen time but what's a waste about it is that the A-list actors are all playing the most redundant characters out of this entire movie.
Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Foster, seriously, this movie could had so easily done without any of them and their characters they were playing as well.
That's also the only thing that it has in common with Crash (the type of movie it is).The actors are great (especially Anthony Hopkins as always) and the stories are decent enough.
But even with strong performances from Anthony Hopkins, Ben Foster and Maria Flor, the movie never took off.
I love social movies, but unfortunately this one was Boring, slow and without any exciting twists in the story.
Antony Hopkins' monologue at the AA meeting is the best part of the movie as far as I'm concerned , because you know he will never disappoint you, but other than that ,it really isn't a movie that will enrich you in some way, it is a waste of time really.I also disliked the music, it was poorly chosen and made the movie look even worse.
I was disappointed because I thought that actors such as Jude Law and Hopkins would eventually offer some excitement in the movie,but mainly, it tells common stories of our daily lives, so..what else is new?.
There is a premise with much promise, which was written by acclaimed British screenwriter Peter Morgan, directed by respected director Fernando Meirelles, and features some top acting talent from around the world, notably Anthony Hopkins.
It's one of those connections movies with an ensemble cast, which had been done so effectively in movies like "Short Cuts" and "Magnolia", and it's hard to say how disappointing this film was.
Fernando Meirelles, an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee, was evidently able to employ such a great cast (Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Ben Foster - above all) thank to his prior fame, and screenwriter Peter Morgan is no amateur either, but the outcome is somehow protracted and arid (however, strange references to my country were included, not often in English-speaking films).
Some movies with seemingly connecting stories about central themes may succeed, like Pulp Fiction, but 360 doesn't seem to live up to that completely.
But, that's the way life works.Jude Law and Rachel Weisz's storyline seemed pointless to elaborate on.
It connected with the other story lines, and was a crucial link to pull the stories together, but it wasn't interesting at all.The storyline with the sex offender and Lara had a good ending and a lesson learned, but it was kind of stupid.
While she obviously didn't know he was a sex offender, she didn't know who the man was to begin with, and that plot point was desperate and unrealistic.Anthony Hopkins' quest to find his daughter was very well done, and I loved this storyline.
On a stop-over, sex offender Tyler (Ben Foster) has just been released and is tempted by aggressive Laura in her hotel room.There are a couple other story lines.
The film is more interested in characters than story; an unusual approach, yes, and arresting for a while, but ultimately not fulfilling enough to carry it for almost two hours.Director Fernando Meirelles has done some very good films (City Of God, The Constant Gardener for example) so one could be forgiven for expecting big things of 360.
this film blows your mindMise-apart from the the characters, and the stories of their choices, responsibilities and change of point of view.
the inter-connection of lives all this beautifully performed by all the cast, needless to say it's always a pleasure watching some HOPKINS' MOMENTS.
Although it's sometimes very hard to grasp all the relationships at once, different characters, languages and locations make watching this film an interesting experience nonetheless.Out of those many stars, perhaps Anthony Hopkins, Maria Flor, Jude Law, Gabriela Marcinkova play slightly more important roles than other actors (it's worthy to note Flor and Marcinkova don't even have their IMDb head pictures as of now).
It's a refreshing change to see none of the big names are claiming the entire show.Though all the threads neatly come full circle by the end, I wish the filmmaker had added a bolder message or impact to make the film more enjoyable to compensate the lack of true lead characters.
Interconnected story lines of various people's lives criss-crossing across the globe film in the vein of Babel--doesn't have much to either recommend or even keep you watching once you're a good half hour or so in it.
I kind of liked Anthony Hopkins' performance and i kind of thought Ben Foster's storyline was interesting--at least at first since it doesn't really go anywhere after the big reveal of his character---i kind of liked the ending with the big hearted Russian guy and the younger sister of the exploited call girl coming together with their story lines (does that count as a spoiler?
i'm honestly not sure because i'm not sure anything that happens in this movie could be called a spoiler since a spoiler would imply that something happens towards the end of the movie that affects the outcome of the story---and that's really not the case with anything that happens in this movie) I wanted to like Jude Law--indeed i thought the first scene with him was setting up a potentially interesting storyline but then he all but disappears throughout the majority of the film only coming back at the tail end to give the illusion of coming full circle.
This film doesn't seem to have much of a point unless you count the very vague notion that we're all people living on this planet and we're all worthy of happiness even if we're not entirely sure that we are worthy of it---i suppose that could work as a synopsis for a film but its about as vague as anything else that i managed to take away in the two hours of watching this movie unravel.
Meirelles and Morgan weave together the stories of an array of people from disparate social backgrounds through their intersecting relationships in locales such as Paris, London, Bratislava, Rio de Janeiro, Denver and Phoenix.The audience must pay full attention to the stories as they unwind as there is a huge cast of characters and most of them, even though briefly at times, are interconnected.
360 is a movie about a huge international cast (and wasted as well) playing characters that are connected by a fact in common: the difficulties to decide which may be the right decision to take.I guess that this is the worst movie by Fernando Meirelles and also the worst one to use this kind of 'hyperlinked' narrative.
The best thing about Meirelles is the way he uses the camera angles to pick up right moments and that is always a great thing to observe, but the movie lacks of depth and soul.
One thing that is very interesting is the fact that seems that all characters are faded and used to their conditions in a ordinary simple and miserable life, but you never get close enough to any of them because every story is told like a chronicle and not as relevant example.
Maybe that was the intention, but that distance doesn't work here.It follows and uses the same characteristics of movies like Magnolia (1999), Crash (2004) and Heights (2005), just some examples as the list of Short Cuts-alike is huge and a now a sad cliché.Maybe the main problem of entire movie is its huge number of characters and their bad developed stories which makes you never get an entire one or a whole idea.A forgettable one..
The stories consist of an escort, infidelity, a sex offender, a man looking for his missing daughter, and a Russian.
Unfortunately, this film was done better before by Max Ophuls in France.This new retelling of the play was the work of the ambitious team of Fernando Mirelles, its director, and Peter Morgan, the screenwriter.
Take the cases of Jude Law's businessman prevented from having sex with an aspiring prostitute, or the grieving Anthony Hopkins coming to identify the body of who can be his runaway daughter.The large cast is easy on the eyes, but in the final analysis, there is no substance to most of the vignettes.
When initially watching the beginning of the movie i thought it was another film because i didn't recognise the actors and it was in another language.
I think the film was put together in a great way but the plot of the story wasn't as good as i was expecting.