The Watcher (2000)
Average Rating: 3.4/10
Reviews Counted: 88
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 79
The Watcher has Keanu Reeves cast against type, but the movie is short on thrills, suspense, and believability.
Average Rating: 3.2/10
Critic Reviews: 26
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 24
The Watcher has Keanu Reeves cast against type, but the movie is short on thrills, suspense, and believability.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 21,231
Movie Info
A detective is urged on by the lunatic he's trying to put behind bars in this crime thriller. Joel Campbell (James Spader) is a police detective who has recently relocated to Chicago after spending eight frustrating years trying to track down a vicious serial killer who has been terrorizing Los Angeles. However, the slayer, David Allen Griffin (Keanu Reeves), doesn't want the game of cat and mouse to end; even though he previously put his murderous activities on hold, Griffin has started
Sep 8, 2000 Wide
Sep 2, 2003
$28.6M
Universal Pictures
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Cast
-
James Spader
Joel Campbell -
Marisa Tomei
Polly -
Keanu Reeves
David Allen Griffin -
Ernie Hudson
Ibby -
Chris Ellis
Hollis -
Robert Cicchini
Mitch -
Yvonne Niami
Lisa -
Jenny McShane
Diana -
Gina Alexander
Sharon -
Rebakah Louise Smith
Ellie -
Joe Sikora
Skater -
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The Watcher Trailer & Photos
All Critics (102) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (79) | DVD (15)
You can't buy Keanu as a sadist, but you do worry about the guys who wrote the screenplay.
Top CriticIs neither slick, clever nor especially thrilling.
Reeves, as the killer, has the fairly thankless task of saying only what the movie needs him to say; he's limited by the fact that his killer has no real dimension or personality apart from his function as a plot device.
The Watcher is thoroughly European, a nice find.
To borrow a phrase from another Chicagoan, John Belushi, The Watcher is a 'but nooooo' movie.
He likes to watch, but you might not.
Tired plot and disastrous casting.
If I never see another scene in which a woman is bound and gagged, while her killer struts around the room basking in his own psychotic cleverness, I won't mind a bit.
Not half bad as a rental.
Nasty, sadistic, ugly and pointless.
One of the lamest serial killer thrillers of the post-Silence of the Lambs era.
Dreadful performances, scanty motivation and excruciating dialogue.
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 most fun you can have with this insultingly formulaic and utterly predictable film is trying to guess which cliché will be next.
A leaden, somber and suspenseless thriller.
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
Comes this close to overcoming its problems and succeeding as a thriller, but doesn't quite make it.
Perhaps because of his shaggy-slacker demeanor, Reeves inspires another reaction altogether: snickering.
It's grindingly mediocre, in a way that probably would have sent it straight to video were Reeves' name not on the marquee.
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Movie: ID: 14306 Title: The Watcher Release Date: 2000-09-08 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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Director: Joe Charbanic, Jeff Jensen
Summary: Burned out after failing to bust a sadistic serial killer in Los Angeles, FBI agent Joel Campbell (James Spader) retires to Chicago. But the killer (Keanu Reeves) refuses to leave the lawman alone, and begins furnishing new clues designed to drive him mad. To motivate Campbell to rejoin the cat-and-mouse chase, the killer sends photos of his next victims. But it's up to Campbell to try to save them first.
My Thoughts: "I liked it. Thought it was a good thriller. It's just you see so many movies about serial killers they all start looking the same. But I enjoyed Keanu Reeves playing the bad guy. Love him, Spader and Tomei. They were my reasons for watching this flick. They all did a great job. The movie is never slow, and it keeps you interested all the way through. Good rental."