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 Watcher (2000)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:85
Fresh:9
Rotten:76
Average Rating:3.4/10
Consensus: The Watcher has Keanu Reeves cast against type, but the movie is short on thrills, suspense, and believability.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Box Office: $9,062,295
Synopsis:
FBI agent Joel Campbell (James Spader) has gone into hiding. Traumatized and beaten down after years of pursuing psychotic killers in Los Angeles, he is trying to carve a new, less stressful, life...
FBI agent Joel Campbell (James Spader) has gone into hiding. Traumatized and beaten down after years of pursuing psychotic killers in Los Angeles, he is trying to carve a new, less stressful, life for himself in Chicago. But his guilty past follows him. He has only been in Chicago for a few months when there is a rash of gruesome murders, all of which follow a sickeningly familiar pattern: They are undoubtedly the work of one man -- David Allen Griffin (Keanu Reeves).
The cunning and tormenting Griffin prodded and eluded Campbell for years in Los Angeles. And now he has pursued his tracker to Chicago. For Griffin, the vicious, merciless killing of lonely young women has merely become a pretext for a sadistic game of cat and mouse game between himself and Campbell. Before each murder he sends the FBI agent a photograph of his intended victim and dares him to find her before he strikes again.
Each successive killing reminds Campbell of his past failures, dredging up feelings of helplessness and loss that he has been trying to suppress. And for his nemesis Griffin, Campell's exquisite torture becomes his entire reason for killing.
He meticulously stages one final murder, designed to destroy Campbell by confronting him with his guilt-plagued past. And unless Campbell can stop him, he will become the killer's ultimate victim.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, James Spader, Marisa Tomei, Robert Cicchini
Starring: Keanu Reeves, James Spader, Marisa Tomei, Robert Cicchini, Chris Ellis, Ernie Hudson, Jenny McShane
Director: Joe Charbanic
Director: Joe Charbanic
Screenwriter: Clay Ayers, Joe Charbanic, David Elliott, Darcy Meyers
Producer: Nile Niami, Patrick Choi
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Reviews for The Watcher
First-time director Joe Charbanic seems to have watched too many music videos.
The most fun you can have with this insultingly formulaic and utterly predictable film is trying to guess which cliché will be next.
To borrow a phrase from another Chicagoan, John Belushi, The Watcher is a 'but nooooo' movie.
There is not a single original thought in The Watcher, but as these things go, it's not awful.
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 sledgehammer soundtrack editing is also baffling, considering that Charbanic's background is in music videos.
A conventional slasher movie that's larded its bloodletting with pretension.
We can't ignore the lack of anything resembling substance or purpose in The Watcher.
Latest News for The Watcher
June 01, 2007:
Another "Hercules" Flick?
Anyone out there ever seen the Lou Ferrigno "Hercules" movies? Hilarious stuff. Anyway, Millennium Films is planning to bring the character back to the big screen. Again. More...
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