THE WATCHER (2000) Barely watch-able, and I don't even know why I was planning on putting off watching this movie more or less indefinitely, but I was finally prodded into it this past week. It's...it's Keanu. I just can't stand the guy. Every time I see him, I just wanna kick him right in the nuts, again and again and again, make him squeal like a little girl and beg for mercy. Even in his good movies, I keep thinking how satisfying it would be to kick him right in his surfer-dude nuts. What a good, glorious thing that would be. O God, is it too much for me to ask, for you in your infinite wisdom to let me kick Keanu in the nuts? But The Watcher does have one hook for a guy like me - Keanu's the badguy. So, chances are, he's gonna die and die ugly at the end of the movie, and hell yeah, I wanna see that. But could I sit through a whole movie of him before it happens? So, Keanu plays a serial killer who specializes in strangling his victims with piano wire. I always get a kick out of serial killers with this specialty, picturing them walking into a piano store and asking to buy just one string. Keanu makes for such an unmenacing villain that after he kills one girl, he adopts her cat, who doesn't fear him, or even seem to harbor any bad feelings (there's pet loyalty for ya). Anyway, years ago in Los Angeles, the FBI agent who worked on his case (James Spader) had to choose between chasing him down or trying to save his girlfriend - he opted for the latter, and failed at both. So he moved to Chicago and became a pharmacopial shut-in (one guy refers to him as "Captain Barbituate") who nevertheless make it out to see his shrink (Marisa Tomei) twice a week. Bored at not having a worthy nemesis (plus there's some blather about how they're brothers under the skin and they need each other), the killer relocates to Chicago and continues to taunt and torment the now-back-on-duty agent. A lot of these serial-killer movies suffer from being overplotted - too many "surprise" twists and turns at the end, often rendering watching the first 90 minutes of the movie an even bigger waste of time than it already was. The Watcher has quite the opposite problem; its plot is too simple, basic, and predictable. Keanu takes a picture of a girl, gives the cops one day to find and save her, and the cops aaaaaaalmost get to her in time. Keanu does it again. Keanu does it again...but it's different this time, and oh look, there's only about ten minutes left in the movie. Maybe the biggest problem with this movie is that it's simply the most obnoxiously over-directed movie I've seen in...I can't even think of a movie that comes close. Director Joe Charbanic uses every film stock and shutter speed imaginable, tossing in randomly (what is this, two fucking frames per second?), particularly during the frequent flashback scenes. There's one scene where Keanu says "I'll send you a picture, and you can have a day to try to find her", and about a minute later, when Spader is looking at the photo, you hear that echoey voice say "I'll send you a picture, and you can have a day to try to find her...". And then, there's the heavy-handed "all these people who never notice each other!" theme, which of course ultimately comes to nothing at all except for shots of people stepping on discarded "Find this girl!" posters. This was his first picture, and I haven't heard of him getting work since. That's not to say that The Watcher is a complete waste of time; hell, I don't know what it was, but something about this movie had me paying attention. Spader's performance is really good (it helps that he's not written as constantly clashing with his superiors), and even the oft-maligned Marisa Tomei does okay in her role, the script (three people) wisely avoiding a romance here where a million other movies would've subjected us to one. Then again, maybe it was just cut out after test screenings, hell if I know. As for Keanu getting his ass handed to him, yeah, I'd hardly call it a spoiler to mention that it does happen. But it happens with an off-putting combination of bad explosion effects and an ill-advised parallel to the hand-in-the-garborator problem: in this case, it's the go-check-the-body-to-make-sure-it's-dead problem. Contains the most gratuitous chase scene I think I've ever seen, as Spader phones one cop who's in the middle of a completely irrelevant chase, and doesn't the conversation goes on throughout, uninterrupted. As for relevant chase scenes, did we really need an exploding gas station? Can you screenwriters out there think of no other way to end a chase than with an exploding gas station? Also contains one establishing shot of Chicago which had me thinking "Wow...I never knew sections of Chicago looked so sci-fi!" And please...I think I've heard "Dragula" in enough fucking movies already. Interesting trivia - maybe you weren't paying attention to the news on September 11th, but that was the day Keanu chose to announce that he was shafted into making this movie because somebody else forged his signature on the contract for it! Sez he: "If it's September that means it's been a year so I can finally talk. I never found that script interesting, but a friend of mine forged my signature on an agreement. I couldn't prove he did and I didn't want to get sued for not honoring the contract so I had no other choice but to do the film." Maybe Keanu should return the favor and forge his friend's signature on a contract for making gay porno. Just a suggestion. I didn't hate this movie, but I know I should. BACK TO THE R's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE