Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 54
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 24
At times a tense and provocative thriller, Civic Duty struggles to move beyond its one-note premise.
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Critic Reviews: 22
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 12
At times a tense and provocative thriller, Civic Duty struggles to move beyond its one-note premise.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 29,163
Where does legitimate concern end and paranoia begin? A man finds himself walking that fine line in this tense independent drama. Terry Allen (Peter Krause) is an accountant who lives a seemingly ordinary life until he loses his job. Unable to buy the new house he was hoping to get for his fiancée, Marla (Kari Matchett), Terry spends most of time in his apartment, looking for job leads, sending out resumés, and feeling increasingly powerless. As Terry watches more and more stories about the war
Apr 26, 2006 Wide
Sep 4, 2007
$54.9k
Freestyle Releasing/Yari Film Group
All Critics (57) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (31) | Rotten (26) | DVD (6)
A flawed but worthwhile examination of paranoia and clashing cultures in the 21st century.
It does build up considerable suspense and tension; Renfroe has learned well from Hitchcock.
The vivid sense of time and place is the best thing about the initially promising, ultimately irritating psychological thriller Civic Duty.
As thoughtful as it means to be -- its agenda is outlined by on-the-nose dialogue from its characters -- Civic Duty does little to go beyond this premise.
A sharp 9/11 twist on Rear Window paranoia, Civic Duty is all the more effective for its chilling plausibility.
The filmmakers aren't able to pull it off but deserve credit for their attempt to be thought-provoking.
Terrorism themes paranoia = not for kids.
See it for Krause's incredibly great work, but be warned that everything around him isn't nearly as good, especially the final reel.
mostly suffers from overwriting
You know where this is going and that it's going to end badly. The only question is for whom
If we can ignore the plot's too-often dips into cliché, we just might walk away with a lot on our minds.
Eventually it all boils down to cliché, with home invasions by Terry, physical confrontations between Terry and Gabe, a hostage situation, a main character getting gunned down, and all the other standard thriller tropes that might excite the kind of audie
Terrorism can make you crazy. Or more accurately, U.S. media hype about terrorism can drive you to believe.
Andrew Joiner's clever and layered screenplay just may be one of the best of the year, particularly as it requires thought and may even spark debate.
Krause and his character are the entire movie. Watching him fall apart is fascinating and the ending has a particularly nice, if expected, twist.
"Rear Window" updated to post 9-11 corporate downsizing has too many mixed messages to convey the simple fear of a classic thriller.
There's the faint air of a solid cable movie about Civic Duty...but the questions it raises are provocative enough to make it worth seeing.
Until it becomes simply a hostage dilemma, the film maintains an uneasy air of mystery and suspicion.
An intense and startling movie for our times. It hits you right between the eyes.
A claustrophobic setting and the paranoid concerns of a modern world make Jeff Renfroe's "Civic Duty" an effective psychological thriller.
This movie hit the screen shortly after 9-11, it was done fast to capitalize on the post 9-11 movie rush. Its not a bad movie but its surly low budget. Our Main Crazy Star is Peter Krause who plays Terry Allen, a loser of a man, lost job, losing his wife, he sits at home watching the news about the 9-11 terrorist and
September 18, 2009Super Reviewer
Bill Hicks once told a funny joke about watching CNN non-stop which he did not recommend doing. If only Terry Allen(Peter Krause) in "Civic Duty" had followed such sage advice...(Not to mention the advice on the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.) Terry is an accountant who has just been laid off and lives
March 22, 2008Super Reviewer
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