The ideal animated film for Ron Paul to watch with his grandchildren, the bizarre Silver Circle certainly deserves points for sheer eccentricity. Pasha Roberts’ dystopian sci-fi thriller concerns the battle between the oppressive Federal Reserve and underground rebels fighting to restore a currency based on silver. The Lion King it ain’t, although the video may well become a stocking stuffer for Tea Party members this Christmas.
Set in 2019, when runaway inflation has taken hold and the federal government controls every aspect of the financial system, including the housing market, the story begins with the meeting of lantern-jawed Fed agent Jay Nelson (De’Long Grant) and rebel leader Zoe Taylor (Philana Mia) during a routine arson investigation at one of the homes that the government has forcibly seized. As the pair become embroiled in the violent clashes between the militaristic government forces and the rebels minting their own silver currency, Jay finds himself becoming increasingly sympathetic to their cause, helped along in no small part by his burgeoning romance with the bodacious Zoe.
The Bottom Line
This crudely animated mixture of futuristic thriller and political agitprop will appeal only to the converted.
The melodramatic storyline is burdened with a screenplay by Steven Schwartz that features hopelessly stilted dialogue and the sort of claptrap agitprop at which even the staunchest libertarians would probably roll their eyes. Even worse is the crude computer animation resembling a bargain-basement video game, which renders the characters virtually expressionless.
Gold and silver speculators aside, it’s impossible to imagine who the audience would be for this bizarre combination of animated sci-fi and political manifesto, except possibly those sympathetic to its cause who find reading a little too, pardon the pun, taxing.
Opens March 22 (Area23a)
Production: Lineplot Productions
Cast: De’Lon Grant, Philana Mia, Peter Berkot, Victor Shopov, Robert Dunn, Greg Shea
Director/producer: Pasha Roberts
Screenwriter: Steven Schwartz
Editor: Ben Pugh
Composer: Lee Strauss
Rated PG-13, 90 min.
