The Watcher
“The Watcher” is the cinematic equivalent of going to a moderately-priced restaurant, ordering a decent meal, only to have it just lie there on your plate. You’re not expecting haute cuisine, but you do expect your meal to have some flavor. Instead, it’s blander than Brittany Spears.
Serial Killer movies have become such a Hollywood staple that they probably have their own section at Blockbuster. Ever since “Silence of the Lambs” walked off with Best Picture, Hollywood has been pumping out serial killer thrillers faster than they can come up with scripts.
Perhaps that explains why so many of them sound and look alike. The genre has become so generic that it’s hard to take it seriously anymore. Either directors go to the extreme, like in the recent film “The Cell,” or they take a more conventional approach, like “The Watcher.”
Walking the straight and narrow is a bold choice for an edgy thriller, yet that is what former music video director Joe Charbanic does with “The Watcher.” Except for the visual flourishes that seem to shout, “Hey look what I can do,” the film is flat and uninteresting. It’s so predictable and familiar you spend most of the story waiting for the characters to catch up.
I’m tired of former music video directors who think they’re being cutting edge when all they are really doing is showing off. Charbanic shoots the film as if he’s reinventing the wheel, when in fact all he is doing is spinning his wheels. Maybe he’s trying to hide the obvious, that the script is crap.
The director doesn’t lend much support to the actors, who play their characters so matter-of- factly you wonder if they received any direction at all. It really doesn’t matter, because the people they play aren’t characters, but types.
There’s the burnt-out FBI agent, the charismatic yet creepy serial killer, the nonplused therapist. Writers David Elliot and Clay Ayers do little except move them from point A to point B. There’s very little shading, and the motivation and set-up is so weak it’s embarrassing. Characters are forced to do really dumb things in order for the story to move forward.
James Spader, still looking buff after “Supernova,” plays Joel Campbell, an FBI agent who profiles serial killers. Campbell has been tracking Los Angeles serial killer David Allen Griffin for some time. After eleven victims, Campbell has a breakdown and calls it quits. He moves to Chicago to get away from his problems, which eventually lead him to see a psychiatrist.
Campbell is a shell of a man, a burnt-out, heavily medicated example of what can happen when an agent gets too close to a case. Campbell is in no shape to take care of himself, so he’s especially vulnerable when he learns that Griffin has followed him to Chicago to continue their game. Desperate to keep the connection between cat and mouse open, Griffin ups the stakes by providing Campbell with clues to who he is going to kill.
Ah, the clever serial killer. Been there, done that. Been there so many times in the past ten years that it’s been done to death. The problem with “The Watcher” is that it’s not nearly as clever as the writers or director believe it to be. Their feeble attempts at moralizing their actions is even worse. What could have been a fascinating dissection of human nature ends up being nothing more than a stab at film noir. It’s more like film not.
The writers toy with an interesting angle, that we as a society fail to connect with those immediately around us. We’re so self-involved with our own problems that we could be standing next to a serial killer or even his next victim and not even know it. We could be the next victim and not even know it.
It’s a great angle, one the writers almost bring to fruition. Then they lose their focus and simply concentrate on the cat and mouse chase, and that is where the film ultimately fails. Clever serial killers always have flaws. They have to in order for the good guys to win. So instead of being involved in the cat and mouse chase, we’re just waiting for the moment where the killer trips up.
It also helps to make the serial killer interesting. Simply being charismatic isn’t enough. Even at their most disarming, we should always feel there’s something inherently evil about them. A glimmer in the eye. The way they say a certain word. Reeves plays the killer like someone who just walked out of an acting class. It’s all by-the-numbers.
Spader deserves better. His performance is the best thing about the film, and that’s not saying much. He shows us a man who is literally on-the-edge. Unfortunately, his character is asked to do things that totally betray the spirit of his performance. Tomei is wasted as the therapist, given little more to do than sit around and look interested. She’s not. She’s probably still trying to figure out how she won the Oscar for “My Cousin Vinny.”
Serial killer movies like “Seven,” “Silence of the Lambs” and “The Minus Man” worked because they were clever. They weren’t attempting to be clever. The script for “The Watcher” attempts to be clever, and in the process, falls flat on its face. The writers haven’t lived life. They’re just imitating what they have seen on television and in the movies.
It doesn’t help to have a director on board whose sole interest is producing a 90 minute calling card so he doesn’t have to helm the next Ricky Martin video.
PEEK-A-BOOBThe Watcher is just killing time
THE WATCHER
James Spader, Marisa Tomei, Keanu Reeves, Ernie Hudson, Chris Ellis in a film directed by Joe Charbanic. Rated R. 93 Minutes.
LARSEN RATING: $2
