ReelViews by James Berardinelli

The movie is low-key but each scene is packed with information. Full understanding demands full attention.

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

It has a chillingly matter-of-fact cynicism that is very au courant.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea

Director John Crowley trots his crew around London, working up a suitable amount of suspense. And paranoia.

The A.V. Club by A.A. Dowd

Closed Circuit may be little more than a high-minded, shrewdly topical gloss on a shopworn genre, but its cynicism is bracing.

USA Today by Claudia Puig

Not only an intelligent, well-told and deftly acted story, it provides refreshing counter-programming in a season filled with noisy, uninspired sequels and mindless action movies.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

In addition to Bana and Hall, Jim Broadbent is outstanding in a couple of scenes, as a government official, watching from the sidelines and offering warnings and advice. Broadbent is somehow menacing, pathetic and persuasive all at the same time.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips

The satisfactions of the film are in seeing what a screen full of excellent players can do to steer you around the holes. Bana never quite seems enough to anchor a picture for me; all the same, he acquits himself sharply here.

Variety by Peter Debruge

[A] slick, smarter-than-usual conspiracy yarn.

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

The director, John Crowley, handles Steve Knight’s snaky script capably, introducing the characters, their backgrounds and the political stakes in bold strokes.

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Trim and effective though Closed Circuit mostly is, it does fall prey to excessive contrivance from time to time, as most thrillers do. But the fact that its fictional premise dovetails nicely with what we've come to know is true is enough to hold us in our seats.

Village Voice by Stephanie Zacharek

To Crowley's credit, Closed Circuit is decidedly unflashy. But maybe that's a liability: There's a fine line between restrained and drab, and Closed Circuit falls just on the wrong side of it.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Joe Williams

Closed Circuit is not a tense thriller about the new era of surveillance — it's a tepid thriller about the old notion that no leader can be trusted.

The Playlist by Gabe Toro

The sloppy reveals of the third act can be seen from miles away, turning this into a low-impact actioner where characters are turned into chess pieces, and the narrative’s aim is to strategically assemble the parts like a play set.

The Dissolve by Scott Tobias

It’s a slickly packaged, proficient thriller first, political statement a distant, speck-on-the-horizon second.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore

Blame it on the weak chemistry of the stars, blame it on the way the script refuses to let them develop chemistry and the perfunctory way the story is dispensed with, but the sparks aren’t there.

The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Farber

A couple of scenes toward the end do generate the suspense that the whole movie needed. But the impact is too muted, and an air of tired familiarity ultimately curdles the entire enterprise.

Slant Magazine by Abhimanyu Das

It fails as a critique of draconian security states and surveillance culture, moving too fast to properly consider any of the well-worn ideas it glosses over.

Film.com by Jordan Hoffman

The whole picture is lifeless and without consequence.

IndieWire

Many of the problems with Closed Circuit stem from a script littered with first-draft exposition...exacerbated by unimaginative staging.