Wampyrii doesn't live here any more. Play nice y'all. :)
Wampyrii doesn't live here any more. Play nice y'all. :)
Member since:15.09.2000
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Does the term 'generic' mean anything to you? Well, The Watcher can best be described as generic, nothing more nothing less. Its not a good movie, its not a bad movie, it just...generic. It is a movie which puts a serial killer at the centre of a case involving a pursuing burnt-out FBI agent and centres a whole bunch of games around this pursuit to torment him. Its a movie you have seen countless times before but with different actors and a barely discernable script and a movie you probably do not really want to see again. It has no place in the world because its seat has already been taken and standing room is becoming rapidly limited, and there are surely very few people who are desperate enough to see serial killer movies anymore to warrant making a little more space.
Its is just so distinctly....AVERAGE!
The Silence of the Lambs, Se7en and The Cell provided the benchmark for this type of movie to meet, The Watcher doesn't even come close. It features James Spader in the lead role as FBI agent Joel Campbell, a guy who moves to Chicago after failing to apprehend the notorious serial killer David Griffin played by Keanu Reeves. Griffin is known as 'The Watcher' due to the meticulous way in which he watches his victim for weeks before attacking and killing them with piano wire. When Campbell fails and movies to Chicago however, Griffin changes the rules of the game and follows him there involving him directly in the murders by sending him pictures of the women he is about to kill and giving him 24 hours to find them before he does so.
The body count rises.
The Watcher tries to make a singular and very interesting point but for that to be the sole draw for a movie is rather weak. It shows us how insular we are in our society, how we can see a million faces each day and probably remember absolutely none of them. We cross-cut countless lives and have no clue that we have done so because we are wrapped in our own insular circles. An interesting thought that if this case did actually become reality, how many of us would remember our lives crossing the paths of these women if they had and could we then prevent them being killed? Probably none of us would remember. Its an interesting concept but one which the movie just throws in our face rather than developing to a point of real interest. Again too, we see how a serial killer can be empowered by the media and the investigative team, and yet again, this is a point not developed. Its all very lazy.
Given the cold, distant relationship we are given with the victims, they are just faces afterall, it difficult to feel much sympathy for them. Spader too, in the good guy role is another we can not empathise with or even care about in the slightest thanks to his downbeat, pill popping performance - which just leaves us with the killer. Reeves plays an enigmatic psychopath, full of charm and charisma, but with a calm iciness below this. He is more likable than the rest put together but we know that a smile from him would reveal fangs. without a central character to cheer on, its difficult to care who wins or loses Griffin's game. I have to say too that Joe Charbanic's weird camera angles and quick-cuts to show the killer's mental state really do nothing good for this movie either, other than showcase the talent he thinks that he has.
Overall then, The Watcher is the kind of serial killer fare that we are all getting rather bored with. It mulls over old ideas, flashes over a few new ones but generally doesn't offer anything which sets it apart from the rather large and ever-growing crowd. Its not total rubbish, but its not really worth watching either when every one of us has seen the same thing countless times before. Its just distinctly average.
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Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: Bharat Nalluri, Rob Bailey, Andy Wilson - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Lisa Faulkner
Thriller - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Timothy West, Neil Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Annette Crosbie, Pauline Quirke, Rob Brydon, Denise Van Outen, John Thomson, Kevin Whately, David Suchet
FBI agent Joel Campbell (James Spader) has gone into hiding. Traumatized and beaten down ... more
after years of pursuing psychotic killers in Los Angeles he is trying to carve a new less stressful life for himself in Chicago. But his guilty past follows him....
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![The Watcher [DVD] [2001]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78523042.jpg "The Watcher [DVD] [2001]")
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