You can't buy Keanu as a sadist, but you do worry about the guys who wrote the screenplay.
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
The script sucks, the directing sucks, and, as much as I do like him, Keanu sucks.
Peters out like a late-night drunk when its threadbare plot and poorly drawn supporting characters start to stand out like a row of empty shot glasses.
The scenario involving a seductive predator obsessed with female loners is not coherent enough to seduce an audience.
Utiliza el gastado recurso argumental de que tanto el bueno como el malo se necesitan mutuamente para poder existir
all the self-consciously hip style in the world isn't enough to compensate for an inert story that has no real destination
Director Joe Charbanic does some good work with the stylized visuals but forgets that if we don't care about the characters we don't care what the scenery around them looks like either.
[Keanu's] line readings, aiming for a mixture of suavity and creepiness, just sound silly.
The Watcher brings nothing new to the party. It's an uninspired, standard-issue mimeo whose only distinguishing feature is a reversal in its casting.
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