An FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer attempts to capture the madman with a little assistance from his would-be victims in director Jennifer Chambers Lynch's supernatural police thriller. FBI agents Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) are on the trail of some killers when they arrive in a small desert town to investigate a vicious mass shooting on the highway. The witnesses are an overzealous cop, an unreliable junkie, and an eight-year-old girl. For some
reason agents Anderson and Hallaway can't comprehend, the pieces of the puzzle just don't seem to fit together. Later, when the minute details concealed by each witness finally start coming into focus, the two agents discover that sometimes the truth comes at a very substantial cost. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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.
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.
This strange thriller mixes a penchant for grittiness with the surreal and very very dark stylings of David Lynch, who happens to be the father of the director...
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.
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.
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.
Wow a decent thriller with a dark slick murder mystery. If i say anything else it could give away the whole mystery. So instead I will just say watch this one.
Jennifer Chambers Lynch (daughter of the great trancendental David Lynch) made her directorial debut in 1993 with "Boxing Helena". That film recieved some scathing reviews and if my memory serves it was an absolute turkey. However, this second shot at directing is a vast improvement. Hunting a vicious serial killer,
FBI agents Hallaway (Bill Pullman) and Anderson (Julia Ormond) pitch up at a police station to question three survivors and the cops who saved them. But with the stories failing to match up, can anyone be trusted - and is anybody safe? You can tell that Jennifer Lynch's auteur filmmaker father has had a heavy influence on his daughter. She employs a similiar eerie atmosphere; similiar characters with odd, unexplained behaviour and similar small, remote american settings like "Twin Peaks", or "Wild at Heart". Although she's still a far cry from the genius or intelligence of her father, she can be proud of what she's crafted with this one. The performances are spot on from a cast that has obviously put their trust in their director and Lynch's visual style complements the cast. It's not without it's flaws however, and sometimes verges on implausibility but I really liked it. Certainly not for all tastes but it's very effective and disturbing feeling of dread lingers long after viewing it. The fact that it's set in a deserted rural American town adds to the lonliness and fear from the characters and the audience. In only her second film, it looks like Jennifer Lynch still has a bit to learn but with this unusual serial-killer thriller it looks like she may still have something to offer, despite living in her fathers shadow.
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