Surveillance

Surveillance (2008)

This movie starts off with a violent attack of a man and woman in their bed. We later come to find out that this is the woman that various news sources on in the background of many scenes keeps referring to. Then the action then movies pair of FBI agents arriving at a small sheriff’s station to interview a set of victims from a later attack. Thru a series of flashbacks from the survivors (a little girl, a junkie, and an injured cop) as they lay out what happened to them leading up to what is a slaughter on the highway by a pair of serial killers. I can’t really say more without giving anything away, but the movie does make a few obvious twists and turns that are fun, but predictable.

Most of the time when a movie tries to lay a story out with a nontraditional narrative it fails miserably. I think this is because it is damn hard to try and be creative with a story without losing your audience. But director Jennifer Chambers Lynch (who also co wrote the script) does a really good job of balancing 3 separate storylines with 8 different characters thru the flashbacks. This doesn’t even include all the additional characters that appear at the police station. If I had one complaint it is that the big twist is pretty obvious right from the beginning because of the quirkiness of one of the characters. Other than that, which for me is kind of a big let down, the movie is solid. Well actually I suppose I should also mention that if you are one of those viewers that really don’t like endings where the bad people get away with doing bad things then you really aren’t going to dig the ending to Surveillance. The characters have very interesting personalities, which is helped by the great cast. Julia Ormond is great as one of the FBI agents, but I was a bit disappointed with Bill Pullman. He just never seems comfortable in his role as the other FBI agent come to investigate the crime. In smaller supporting roles Michael Ironside, Cheri Oteri, and French Stewart are all really good.

The movie isn’t really a bloody film, but does have it’s moments. There is a bit with a guy under a station wagon that is pretty gruesome, and the last kill of the movie is very disturbing. I also thought the drug overdose is pretty horrible. Not because of the death itself, but the reaction of the characters in the scene. The other technical bits, camera work, lighting, and sound are all solid, but nothing exceptional. I also want to mention that the movie has a great Violent Femmes song in it that is used in a really cool way.

My only real problem with the movie is that I figured it out way too early. But if that doesn’t bother you then I say you might want to check this movie out. Overall this is another solid release from Magnet and worth checking out.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer