Circadian Rhythm

Plot synopsis:
Sarah L. Caul is 24 years old, attractive, skilled in martial arts, and highly intelligent. When the audience first meets her, she has no idea who she is, where she is from, or how she came to be in a white room, in no discernible location.
A familiar melody wakes Sarah from a deep sleep, and she finds herself teaching a history class in the school she attended at age 11. The ‘school’ is revealed to be a replica, and all of Sarah's books and files are completely blank and empty. Now thoroughly confused, Sarah's assistant principal, Sandrine (Terasa Livingstone), explains that Sarah is not a school teacher; rather, she is an assassin, and she has something on her body that Sandrine’s government desires. After a deadly shootout and a high speed chase on a cat-walk, Sarah is intercepted by another "handler" like Sandrine, who tells her the same story, claiming to be from a different country and a different agency, but still desiring the same unknown element. Like Sandrine, once the handler had extracted all of the evidence he could from Sarah, he attempts to kill her. Not able to trust anyone, Sarah spends the duration of her time in the construct trying to stay alive long enough to uncover the truth, and find out why so many people want her dead. She endures a series of wire-fu fights and a car chase while conducting an intense investigation into her past.
Sarah eventually finds herself back in the white room where she started, where, before she can be killed, two gunshots are heard and a slow, wobbly figure emerges from the shadows. The figure is revealed to be J. Edgar Hoover (Seymour Cassel), who is very much alive and very happy to see that his granddaughter, Sarah, is doing just fine. Apparently, Hoover was aware that two government factions had ascertained that he was still alive, and he used his granddaughter as bait to flush out these two agencies, thus eliminating them and any proof of his continued existence. Having shared this, Hoover helps Sarah up and dusts her off, and the two walk off into the light.

Tags: violence, murder, flashback

Review:
Circular Repetition. "Circadian Rhythm" is (cheaply) packaged to look like some high tech action thriller in the style of "The Matrix". There are dozens of straight to video films that make the same claim, but at least those movies actually reflect it in some way. "Circadian Rhythm" is actually just a low budget embarrassment that never would have made it to video if the actors hadn't later wound up in popular TV shows.The viewer is treated to a blank screen followed by a lengthy text prologue about the CIA's MK-ULTRA program and its history. Supposedly this will explain how the mousy hero, Rachel Miner, wakes up in strange places and kills people without thinking about it. Mostly what she does is stand around outside deserted buildings and run beside railroad tracks. The complex web of this movie's "plot" seems only to involve enough characters to fill a small elevator. Since there aren't any extras, these characters may well be the only inhabitants of the planet.The action consists of a handful of badly photographed one on one fight scenes staged in (empty) public places. The low grade video the movie was shot on is just as cheap as it can be and the high contrast and color saturation make it look worse yet.There are twists and chases, but I severely doubt you'll care. By the time you've finished "Circadian Rhythm"'s dismal 71 minutes you won't care about much of anything, except perhaps the promise of never having to sit through it again.