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Surveillance (2009)
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Reviews Counted:69
Fresh:38
Rotten:31
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: This dark psycho-thriller from Jennifer Lynch, is violent, sharp and baffling, but not to everyone's taste.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong bloody violence, pervasive language, some drug use and a scene of aberrant sexuality.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Jun 26, 2009 Limited
Synopsis:
It's been a hell of a day on the highway.
When Federal Officers Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) arrive at Captain Billing's office, they have three sets of...
It's been a hell of a day on the highway.
When Federal Officers Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) arrive at Captain Billing's office, they have three sets of stories to figure out and a string of vicious murders to consider.
One zealot cop, a strung out junkie and an eight year old girl all sit in testimony to the roadside rampage, but as the Feds begin to expose the fragile little details each witness conceals so carefully with a well practiced lie, they soon discover that uncovering ‘the truth’ can come at a very big cost… --© Magnolia Pictures
Starring: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins
Starring: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, Michael Ironside, French Stewart
Director: Jennifer Lynch
Director: Jennifer Lynch
Screenwriter: Kent Harper, Jennifer Lynch
Producer: Kent Harper, Marco Mehlitz, David Michaels
Composer: Todd Bryanton
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
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Reviews for Surveillance
It is staggering to think that a film could be so horrifically nihilistic and so painfully boring at the same time, but Lynch has done it.
[S]low-boil sinister, delivering the kind of simmering menace that few films can bother to take the time for these days...
The pacing is so slow, you just want to yell out at the screen, "get on with it."
Jennifer is no David Lynch and her film, while inventive and quirky and at time quite devious, misses the organic alchemy of his films.
Some will be unable to appreciate the movie's savagery on any level. Others will find it affecting and uncompromising, the kind of movie that plunges you into a nightmare and ratchets up the intensity until you're grateful for a moment's respite.
A festival of carnage that's sometimes funny and sometimes waaay over the line.
Pullman's striking performance here is undermined by Lynch's overreliance on those same grisly shock tactics, as well as a script that fails to capitalize on a promising premise and then swiftly collapses upon the revelation of a not-so-shocking twist.
In this long-time-coming sophomore film, Lynch exercises powers of her own. She gets repellant, seductive, sympathetic performances from her actors. Ormond and Pullman are frightfully good at teasing intimacy.
Surveillance is a respectable murder mystery until its contrived 'big reveal' causes it to deflate faster than an inner tube that was just sat on by a morbidly obese person.
There are a couple of admittedly arresting images on display here and there--not enough to make this film worth watching but enough to make you hope that it doesn't take Lynch another 16 years to make another one.
Surveillance suggests 'Jennifer Lynchian' should be used for films that aspire to David’s moody, idiosyncratic genius and fall woefully short.
A wholly engaging partial misfire, if that makes sense -- a spare yet stylish marginal recommendation that connects due to its provocative premise and ruminations on violence, and the considerations that spawns.
Its mad killers may wear masks. But the real and cheap disguise here is the film's own -- an exploitation shocker trying to pass itself off as art.
Surveillance is a crafty crime film with an involving setup and a ridiculous payoff, but there's enough here to make it worth a viewing at least on DVD or cable.
The most enjoyable way to watch Surveillance -- 'enjoyable' in the relative sense -- is to take its awfulness for granted and pay attention to everything Bill Pullman does.
A grubby, disturbing serial-killer mystery, a kind of blood-simple Rashomon.
Falls somewhere in between the somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone of Wild at Heart and the more au courant trend toward savage, nihilistic deranged-killer movies.
Has solid acting, but offers very little in terms of suspense, intelligence and intrigue. It completely falls apart into an inane, contrived and perverse mess that leaves you with a bad aftertaste.
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