WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

MBunge City Loop is the movie that answers the question – Are Australian teenage losers just as annoying and stupid as their American counterparts? And the answer to that question is…you betcha.The film is about 6 young people who work at a pizza place. Dom (Sullivan Stapleton) is the good looking rebel without a cause. Katie (Haley McElhinney) is the 20something "old woman" of the group still trying to pretend she's a teenager. Stacie (Megan Dorman) is the wild girl whose crazy behavior covers up her inner unhappiness. Misha (Ryan Johnson) is the virgin who almost gets to bang the girl of his high school dreams. Erin (Kellie Jones) is the girl who wants to sleep with her best male friend without realizing he's gay and Bert (Brenden Cowell) is the gay best friend.City Loop focuses on this group in a single night at the pizza place where they work. It breaks up the story into segments that focus on different people. There's a 20 minute section labeled "Dom's Story", another stretch labeled "Misha's Story", etc. with a bouncy technobeat linking them together. The movie also plays around with linear time, showing us the same events from different character's perspectives.As a film, it does differ from the typical American teenage loser comedy in that it doesn't have some contrived plot moving the story along, so it's doesn't have that artificial, formulaic feel. It's more naturalistic, like this is just a bunch of stuff that happens one evening. But like many other naturalistic films, that means it's not terribly entertaining. Real life and real people generally aren't that funny or interesting when you only get to observe them in ordinary conditions for less than a half hour in real time.The only genuinely compelling thing about City Loop is that it again raises the question of why people in foreign movies are so much uglier than in American films. O sure, we get a few walking goblins like Steve Buscemi in U.S films, but by and large the people on the big screen are vastly prettier than in American reality. Even the supporting characters and bit parts are usually played by folks handsome enough to model in the JC Penny catalog. In City Loop, however, only Sullivan Stapleton and maybe Megan Dorman are really that attractive. T he rest of the cast looks more like they should be working as cashiers at small town convenience stores, not acting in motion pictures. That seems fairly common in the rest of the world. Actors in Britain or France or Australia or Japan don't seem to need to be a beautiful as actors in America, and most of the prettiest actors from around the globe seem to eventually find their way to Hollywood. It's like American movies are a black hole of beauty, sucking in the most visually striking folks from around the world.City Loop is one of those films that really isn't bad in any way, but it's hard to think of why anyone would want to spend any of their time watching it. Unless you're an Australian teenage loser yourself, that is.

teeveeq2 I saw "city loop" at Toronto a couple of years ago and more recently on Cable here in Australia. The script is generally too smart by half and tries to be very sassy but the director just didn't pull it off.It probably needed some flesh to be exposed for it to have any credibility as a teen flick of any worth. Nice try folks and it's a valiant effort for a low budget film but in the end you have to ask - WHY BOTHER?

bob the moo A group of teenage workers in Speedy's Anytime pizza delivery parlor have different evenings that intertwine with each other round work. However each are bored and a little disillusioned with their lives. The evening sees some dramatic events in their young lives.I didn't have high hopes for this film – I assumed it was going to be the usual teen angst stuff set in Australia featuring a bunch of characters I could care less about. And in a way I was right, the basic plot(s) are the usual run of mill things. However the stories are quite cool and are aided by a clever quirk. Each characters story is told fully and separately (not original I know- but still effective), and they intertwine. This means we see events that happen later in other stories but they aren't explained till then.The downside is that this is a gimmick and gets old before the film ends. The other downside is that the plots are sometimes too daft and other times too ponderous and navel-contemplating. This isn't helped by the characters being mostly selfish teenagers who think their lives are the be all and end all of everything. The actors don't help this much – they're OK, but they allow their roles to become stereotypes too easily. It has some comedy but mostly this is a teen drama that deals with things like `being a virgin', `cuming too early', `breaking up with girlfriend' etc etc.Overall it passed the time. The story telling gimmick helped for the most part, but it started to drag before the end and wasn't much fun to watch. Teen angst dramas have been done much better than this.

Spleen I'm finding this very difficult to write. After a few false starts I realise how hard it is to properly convey the unusual badness of "City Loop". It's not that it's VERY bad - "insufferably bad" is the strongest phrase I'd use - but it is, unlike many bad things, INDISPUTABLY bad. Moreover (and this is a different thing again) I don't see how anyone could take pleasure in watching it.It's a multi-story ensemble pic in which the stories aren't really stories (they're CALLED stories - "Dom's Story", "Misha's Story", etc., but nothing to speak of happens in them), and the ensemble consists entirely of characters I found it impossible, and I mean IMPOSSIBLE, to take any interest in. (What I wanted to happen was ALWAYS whatever would bring the film to a merciful end.) All characters are amoral and inarticulate, they all move through the world at random, none of them have redeeming qualities (few of them even have qualities). Chayko tries to swindle us into caring by leaving crucial matters unexplained (an excuse to make us watch some scenes TWICE, as if once weren't bad enough), but it doesn't work.I haven't exhausted the film's weaknesses. Photography is unattractive - although I get the feeling it probably wasn't the cinematographer's fault; it feels rather as if Chayko took the poor man (or woman - I fled as soon as the credits began, so I wouldn't know) to some ugly, bare location, asked him to film the ugliest part of it, and then tied his (/her) hands by firing the lighting technician. The music is also pretty drab. The best thing going for it is the fact that, although it seems as though it will never end, it really doesn't last very long.