Circle of Pain

This was one of those discs that arrived unsolicited and I thought twice before even watching the film, let alone putting my thoughts on a website for anyone to read. It was abundantly clear from the synopsis on the press release that Circle of Pain is not the type of movie that I would generally watch as I'm not a fan of cage fighting or mindless action movies. Nevertheless, I thought 'Why not?' and put on the DVD to see what exactly the film was like.

Circle of Pain follows the rather savage world in the octagon where cage fighting takes place, a sport where just about anything goes apart from (as I understand it) eye gouging, fish hooking, head butts or biting. The reigning World Heavyweight Champion in the RFC is the rather formidable Colin 'The Brick' Wahle, a huge muscular man with a mohawk and 20 consecutive victories, all by knockout. He is looking to go for victory #21, breaking the records held by former fighter Dalton Hunt who has been out of the ring for five years working a menial job and living with his paralysed best friend, Wyatt.

The RFC is controlled by Victoria Rualan who inherited the organisation from her father and has proven to be an extremely ruthless operator who controls the fighters, the match ups and even training facilities. Clearly a woman who will use any method at her disposal to get what she wants from extortion to sexual congress, Victoria is someone who knows what she wants and she figures that the biggest fight out there is for Wahle to face Hunt. He has moved on with his life and works on a construction site owned by the company because Rualan Sr allowed him to get out of his contract early and quit the ring.

Victoria, however, sees the contract as a legally binding commitment by Hunt who, as the contract states, as the RFC one fight. When he tells her that he isn't interested in a return to the octagon, he finds out that his estranged wife and daughter are suddenly evicted from their home which Victoria's father had arranged for them when Hunt quit the ring. With a great deal of money on offer and no idea what levels Victoria will stoop to in order to get him back in the ring, he agrees to face Wahle and his friend recommends a trainer who he says is perfect for his needs.


When Dalton Hunt shows up at the address given to him by Wyatt, he doesn't find a state-of-the-art gym but an old man, Reg, who lives alone on a farm without any transportation apart from his horse and no proper equipment. The first thing he does is take Hunt to a bar where they drink quietly before Reg goes to the end of the bar and begins telling three pro-football players about the derogatory statements that his 'friend' has included in their conversation. Although Hunt wants nothing to do with them and tells the three 300+ pound men that he had said no such thing and that his friend is a bit old and doesn't know what he's saying, Reg challenges them to a fight outside and, after slugging the main guy and taking a punch in return which knocks him to the floor, it is up to Hunt to defend himself.

Reg has extremely weird training methods, forcing Hunt to run long distances to increase his cardiovascular fitness and stand in a barn holding a cinder block in each hand with arms outstretched whilst Reg hits him in the stomach with a medicine ball. It turns out that there is some gym work planned with three sparring partners to help Hunt improve his boxing, grappling and kickboxing abilities so he is in the best possible shape to face Wahle. As Reg detects quite early, Hunt's main problem is with his head, not with his body which stems back to an incident some years ago when he and Wyatt were sparring (with Hunt's wife watching and recording proceedings) and, as the sparring increased in intensity, a freak move left Hunt aiming a kick at Wyatt's lower back which instantly paralysed him.

This really is your typical rags to riches Rocky story where a washed-up ex-fighter gets an unlikely shot at the big time and has a trainer whose methods are far from conventional but are just perfect for our troubled hero and will probably pay dividends in the final act when the 'old man' steps into the ring to face a much feared and arrogant opponent with whom there is no bad blood. Will Hunt win the fight and end up reunited with his wife? Well, that would be telling but I guess you already know the answer!


I watched this marvelling at the incompetent acting by everyone, including Bai Ling who is really a cartoon villain as the evil and conniving Victoria who you know will get her comeuppance at the end and even Dean Cain, who plays the wheelchair-bound Wyatt, seems to lower himself to the company around him and doesn't appear to be the same actor who played the 'Man of Steel' in The New Adventures of Superman. Given that many of the cast members, especially Tony Schiena and Heath Herring (who play Dalton Hunt and Colin 'The Brick' Wahle) are current or former fighters, Laurence Olivier-esque thespian talents should not be expected as they are really there to look the part and throw kicks and punches in a realistic and believable way.

The BBFC put some fantastically worded warnings on DVDs and BDs and this one should probably have "Contains Frequent Strong Language, Violence, Sexual Scenes, Cliché and Wooden Acting" as Circle of Pain is one of those films that watching it with your grey matter switched on is basically an insult to everything you know is right and proper with films. If, however, you are a UFC fan who likes sitting down in front of a brainless action film with a six pack of beers and a bag of your favourite snacks, then this will be manna from heaven.

One aspect I considered galling was the sheer amount of advertising for tapout.com, a website that I have just found out is a big retailer of MMA clothing and merchandise. This level of product placement left me with the impression that the film was sponsored by the website as there are banners around the octagon featuring the logo and website and most of the characters are seen at one time or another wearing a T-shirt with the logo. There is also a vaguely misogynistic tone to the entire movie with women either is completely subservient characters, strippers, ring card girls or manipulative and ruthless managers who seem to be prepared to sleep with anyone, anywhere.


The Disc

Extra Features
I had mixed feelings when, after watching the film, I checked the extra features section and found there was no audio commentary as I would have found such a track to partly be a chore and partly be something our listen to out of morbid curiosity to see exactly why Daniel Zirilli chose this type of film and how it was made. But you do have under the Special Features menu art:

Fight Choreography on the Set (2:16) is a far from comprehensive look at the elaborate fight scenes but has footage of a sparring session being rehearsed and then filmed following an interview with fight choreography Arnold Chon.

Interview with MMA Fighters Roger Huerta and Heath Herring (3:26) has the two men flanking Daniel Zirilli and he introduces the piece by saying that he comes from a music video background before allowing the two men to talk. There isn't a great deal of input from either fighter and it doesn't stay on the three men but flicks to footage from the film in which they are involved.

Interview with MMA Fighters Heath Herring and Frank Mir (3:34) is, like the other interview, has the two fighters sitting either side of Zirilli and isn't so much an interview as them saying what they want, from acting to fight choreography.

Behind the Scenes with Interviews of the Cast & Crew (7:31) contains interviews, behind-the-scenes and B-roll footage with Tony Schiena talking about his character, giving a synopsis of the film and going through other things such as a real-life accident that temporarily confined him to a wheelchair and working with Dean Cain which was, unsurprisingly, "a pleasure". Dean Cain, Bai Ling, Kimbo Slice and Daniel Zirilli also talk about the film, sometimes briefly talking about their characters as well.

There is also a trailer which tells you all you need to know about the film. The very fact that the MMA fighters are virtually given top billing in the trailer confirmed my suspicion that this isn't aimed at the casual action movie fan but people who want to see their favourite MMA stars in the movie.


The Picture
The anamorphic widescreen picture is reasonably impressive with decent colours and contrast levels and one that does a fairly good job with the numerous training montages and fight sequences.

There is plenty of slow motion throughout the film which is probably meant to accentuate the fight action and ensure that every kick and punch carries as much impact as possible. Unfortunately, this occasionally has the opposite effect say can see just how much each blow misses by yet the fighters react as if they have been hit with full force. It is no surprise that fights like this are staged for the cameras but it was a bad decision to use angles and frame rates that show the audience that the punches and kicks don't even land.

The Sound
You have the option of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround or 2.0 stereo and, to be honest there is no great deal to choose between them for the most part. However, when it comes to the combat scenes in the arena, the rear surrounds come into play for crowd noise and atmospherics when the camera moves around.

The entire film is accompanied by a pounding (and expletive-laden) hard rock and rap-metal soundtrack that started to irritate me very quickly but I imagine the target audience will welcome such music.


Final Thoughts
Circle of Pain is an extremely bad movie and one that is ineptly written and directed by Daniel Zirilli, who came up with the story along with Shaun Patrick O'Reilly and Bobby Mort (who also wrote the screenplay). It is a thoroughly hackneyed piece of work with clichés galore, wooden acting and a narrative that would leave only the most intellectually challenged of viewers surprised by the ending.

That being said, if UFC is your thing and you are quite happy to spend the night in with some beers and snacks whilst watching a fairly mindless action movie then you might find something here to appreciate. Also, if you like bad movies and can watch them for comedy value, there are laughs aplenty here.