The Watcher | | Cast : | James Spader, Keanu Reeves, Marisa Tomei | | Director : | Joe Charbanic | | Studio : | Universal Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | September 08, 2000 | | DVD Released Date : | April 12, 2005 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 05, 2005 | | Summary | An original thriller! | Content
 | Unusual story about a serial killer who constructs methodically with explicit detail every one of his murderers: He chooses lonely woman and sends photographs hours before to commit the crime.
James Spader looks very convincing but Keanu Reeves was not at his best level.
The final sequence presents a visible fault in what special effects concern.
Nevertheless the film gets its aim.
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| Rating | | | Date | August 02, 2005 | | Summary | Keanu a believable killer | Content
| Dark sometimes slow but I love Keanu in this movie. Very good Character, dark and broody the way I like my killers. I think he did a excellent job with the script he was given. Give the acting a 4 but the script a 2. Still liked it enough to make it into my collection. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | A good cast wasted with amateurish direction and a wretched screenplay !!! | Content
| I am normally a fan of Keanu Reeves, Marissa Tomei, and particularly James Spader, BUT NOT in this movie.
First, whoever cast Marissa as a psychiatrist needs some medical attention of their own...she just doesn't look or even TRY to act the part. She's lucky that Academy Awards (for Cousin Vinny) can't be recalled.
Keanu tries to creep us out as a good looking serial killer with excessively polite diction (what an original concept !!!), but comes off as a "Stepford Husband"...robotic and really not that scary. Let's just say that he won't be replacing Anthony Hopkins or Tony Perkins anytime soon.
James Spader, who is usually the personification of arrogant indifference, just doesn't come across. Sometimes he's arrogant; too often he is indifferent....but then so are we, because his dialog and character are so poorly conceived.
I blame virtually all of this on a lousy screenplay and amateurish direction. There is not one original thought, shot, or concept in the entire movie. The "trick" camera shots look like the work of a stoned high school kid, and the background music is so wretched and disconnected from the story that you begin to wonder if your DVD player may not be picking up random radio signals from a foreign country.
All in all, this would barely rank as a good "made for TV" movie...it lacks the power, talent, vision, and skill of a legitimate theatrical release. For these reasons, I am advising you to pass it up....you can definitely do better. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 24, 2005 | | Summary | Good, not great, the watcher has poor execution... | Content
| We have two modern day stars in excellently cast roles in "The Watcher"; Keanu Reeves plays David Allen Griffin as an intelligent, eccentric, and cold hearted serial killer. James Spader plays Joel Campbell, a police detective who has recently relocated to Chicago after spending eight frustrating years trying to track down a vicious serial killer who has been terrorizing Los Angeles.
However, the slayer, David Allen Griffin, doesn't want the game of cat and mouse to end; even though he previously put his murderous activities on hold, Griffin has started murdering young women again - and is sending clues to Campbell, mailing him photos of his intended victims and urging Campbell to save them while he still can. Also starring Marisa Tomei.
As far as serial killer movies goes, this one has a lot of cliche's in it and is lacking that ultimate chase-down suspense that you need to keep things interesting. Reeves plays his part well and so does spader. Though hollywood profits from dark, evil killers like in the movie "Red Dragon", Reeves is more realistic as the real thing. A regular, decent looking guy who dresses casually but exhibits a higher level of intelligence than the "average joe". Overall it's okay, like I said, it's not terrible by any means, it just could have been better. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 04, 2005 | | Summary | Don't Watcher | Content
| I've always believed that Keanu Reeves would make a really good bad guy, ever since I saw him in action in The Gift. I was hoping that The Watcher would provide the answer. Netflix to the rescue!
The plot of The Watcher revolves around Joel Campbell (James Spader), a former FBI agent who has moved from L.A. to Chicago to escape his demons. And his demons are many, including an affair with a married woman, the death of said married woman, and the choice Joel had to make between catching a serial killer (David Allen Giffin played by Mr. Reeves) or letting the woman he loves burn to death. Unfortunately, Joel was too late to save her.
Joel moves to escape his past, but his past moves with him. David decides to relocate his serial killing activities to Chicago and continue their game of cat-and-mouse. He's gotten so used to killing that Joel is now a part of the thrill of the hunt. So David invents a little game: he mails a picture of his next victim to Joel, who has until 9 p.m. that day to find her before it's too late.
In the middle of all this is Dr. Polly Beilman (the lovely Marisa Tomei), Joel's psychiatrist. She tries to help Joel deal with his issues: he never really sleeps and has perpetual migraines. Can you guess why she's in this film kids? I knew you could!
There are two powerful flaws that make the film distracting instead of creepy.
PROBLEM #1: The film alternates between several "point of view" speeds. One of them is the normal film of day-to-day life. The second is Stalker Cam, from the perspective of David who watches his victims. Just to mix things up, occasionally the screens flashes bright white and we hear the sound of a camera flash. `Cause David's watching. Get it? The third and worst film speed is the Memory Cam. We see bits and pieces of Joel's past life and the death of his lover in weird, Six Million Dollar Man slow motion blur. It's annoying the first time and becomes extremely tedious as the film revisits the same scene over and over and over. Worse, this effect is used whenever action takes place on screen. It's almost as if the director didn't know what to do during action scenes and resorted to blurring things a lot to cover it all up.
PROBLEM #2: At bizarre, inappropriate times, we get rock music interludes. The music varies so widely in scope that it never establishes a mood. American Psycho used music to excellent effect (covering up the screams of the victims as well as establishing the decade of the movie). In The Watcher, it's like someone flipped to MTV during the boring parts.
The main thrust of the film is the horrible anonymity that we all suffer in cities. Even though Joel knows who's going to die, even though the police put posters of the victim everywhere, even though the TV news broadcasts who the victim is...nobody notices these poor, lonely girls. It's a compelling message that's utterly lost in this film.
The actors work with what they've got. Spader comes off as patently unlikable. Tomei looks bored. Everyone else is there to act as typical foils. Reeves' dialogue makes him sound and act like an idiot.
And that's the problem. Serial killers are human wrecks, built from abuse and neglect. We never learn more about David and why he does what he does. To make him truly frightening, we need to get inside his head (stalker cams don't count). But half the time The Watcher is about Joel, who comes off as kind of a jerk. Heck, David's kills aren't even scary. The trailer showed David's shadow as he strangled a woman with piano wire...but get this, it was SPED UP.
In other words, the guys making the trailer decided the murder scenes in The Watcher were too boring, so they sped it up for the trailer. That one scene was what made me want to see the movie. But in the actual film, that scene is filmed in slow motion flash. Forget Joel's migraines, The Watcher tries to give YOU a migraine.
This is Joe Charbanic's first film as a director and presumably his last, since IMDB doesn't list anything else since 2000 when The Watcher was made. It shows. |
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