360 is an episodic tale of love and relationships across countries and continents. It starts in Vienna where we see a cash-strapped young woman (Siposová) going on the game to make some extra cash. A businessman (Law) turns up in the city on a business trip and we find out that he’s somehow unhappily married to Rachel Weisz, who’s in London. And so these tenuous links are used to globe-trot across Europe and America exploring love and relationships upon the way.
Unconvincing and implausabile are the watchwords for 360. Based on Arthur Schnitzlers classic play La Ronde, Morgan and Meirelles obviously wet themselves to have found a fairly original concept and they seem hell-bent on pushing it. In doing so they go too far and make the whole half-baked storyline seem very forced and unbelievable. Everything from character interaction to actual characterisation just don’t compare to the real world (which I assume this is based on) and it’s like watching a tale of human relationships from the point of view of a cat. When you compare this to the competition in a saturated genre – Amores Perros and Crash and co. – this delivers nowhere near their standard of subtly merging story strands. This certainly comes as a surprise as the two guys involved do have an impressive back catalogue.
Some good things do come out of 360 though. Despite causing you to pffft throughout at things that don’t make sense or make you cringe, it is pretty watchable and you will get to the end of it without any great pain. Also, there are some excellent, believable performances amongst the tripe, including Anthony Hopkins getting all wrought and emotional over a missing daughter, and Ben Foster as a newly released convict trying to keep his anger in check whilst waiting for a plane (a situation in which I would have gone postal).