The most fun you can have with this insultingly formulaic and utterly predictable film is trying to guess which cliché will be next.
The Watcher (2000)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:85
Fresh:9
Rotten:76
Average Rating:3.4/10
Consensus: The Watcher has Keanu Reeves cast against type, but the movie is short on thrills, suspense, and believability.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis:
FBI agent Joel Campbell (James Spader) has gone into hiding. Traumatized and beaten down after years of pursuing psychotic killers in Los Angeles, he is trying to carve a new, less stressful, life...
FBI agent Joel Campbell (James Spader) has gone into hiding. Traumatized and beaten down 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. He has only been in Chicago for a few months when there is a rash of gruesome murders, all of which follow a sickeningly familiar pattern: They are undoubtedly the work of one man -- David Allen Griffin (Keanu Reeves).
The cunning and tormenting Griffin prodded and eluded Campbell for years in Los Angeles. And now he has pursued his tracker to Chicago. For Griffin, the vicious, merciless killing of lonely young women has merely become a pretext for a sadistic game of cat and mouse game between himself and Campbell. Before each murder he sends the FBI agent a photograph of his intended victim and dares him to find her before he strikes again.
Each successive killing reminds Campbell of his past failures, dredging up feelings of helplessness and loss that he has been trying to suppress. And for his nemesis Griffin, Campell's exquisite torture becomes his entire reason for killing.
He meticulously stages one final murder, designed to destroy Campbell by confronting him with his guilt-plagued past. And unless Campbell can stop him, he will become the killer's ultimate victim.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, James Spader, Marisa Tomei, Robert Cicchini
Starring: Keanu Reeves, James Spader, Marisa Tomei, Robert Cicchini, Chris Ellis, Ernie Hudson, Jenny McShane
Director: Joe Charbanic
Director: Joe Charbanic
Screenwriter: Clay Ayers, Joe Charbanic, David Elliott, Darcy Meyers
Producer: Nile Niami, Patrick Choi
Reviews for The Watcher
is stirring, has action, humor, and great dialogue (the Spader character is artfully drawn and portrayed).
It's grindingly mediocre, in a way that probably would have sent it straight to video were Reeves' name not on the marquee.
Utiliza el gastado recurso argumental de que tanto el bueno como el malo se necesitan mutuamente para poder existir
Keanu Reeves may very well be the least convincing, least frightening serial killer in the history of the psycho-thriller genre in The Watcher.
Perhaps because of his shaggy-slacker demeanor, Reeves inspires another reaction altogether: snickering.
What should have been an interesting psychological relationship about two men, matched in many ways, who live on opposite sides of the law .. doesn't work here.
To borrow a phrase from another Chicagoan, John Belushi, The Watcher is a 'but nooooo' movie.
The sledgehammer soundtrack editing is also baffling, considering that Charbanic's background is in music videos.
The Watcher will have written itself in your head by your third handful of popcorn.
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