Keanu Reeves, despite being burried in the credits, is the star of this film as serial killer David Allen Griffith. He's a watcher (thus the title) who targets introverted young women and strangles them with a piano wire. And as it turns out his greatest pleasure is not in perpetrating the act itself but in the torment he inflicts on the federal agent working his case.

James Spader (as intense as ever) plays Joel Campbell, the L.A. lawman and object of this killers twisted obsession. But when push comes to shove Joel cracks under the pressure and moves to Chicago to get away from the killings, only to discover months later that his past has caught up with him.

David follows him to the Windy City and begins sending him pictures of his intended victims, daring him to try and find them before he strikes again. By doing this he imposes onto Joel the pain of having had the opportunity to save these girls lives only to blame himself when he fails. It's actually a pretty clever premise but is executed is such a way that the filmmakers seem more intent on going through the motions than having fun with the concept.

As the story continues to unravel, we're introduced in passing to Joel's psychatrist, who because she's played by Marisa Tomei, we know will play a large part in the film's conclusion. It's only too obvious and first time director Joe Charbanic seems intent on letting his audience get ahead of him. That's the movie's biggest flaw, that it tips it's hat too soon and, conversely, can't manage to build suspense. As we're engaged in a race-against-time car chase we already know what's going to happen because the killer can't very well be caught an hour into the picture.

I suspect this is material that would have been better suited to a veteran director and some tweaking in the casting department. Reeves' over-the-top performance is at times chilling but mostly ridiculous. He seems to shy away from the underlying homosexual themes of his character's relationship with Spader's. That wouldn't have been a bad thing necessarily except that was his only interesting characteristic.

Marisa Tomei on the other hand, is subdued in her performance, a role seemingly custom-made for Lorraine Bracco to reprise her role on The Sopranos. It's obviously been too long since My Cousin Vinney, for which she won the Oscar for (and deserved it too). I only hope she has more discretion when it comes to choosing future projects.

And she's not even the only actor to have their talents put to waste. Ernie Hudson is reduced to a bit part here, and even when he does manage to elbow his way onto the screen for some face time, it's usually just to clench his jowl and look angry. Chris Ellis is another one, an actor good enough to go unnoticed in box office hits like Armageddom and Godzilla, but this time is saddled with lines of dialogue so bad he's practically got a bullseye painted on his back.

I can't help but admit I found this movie at least mildly entertaining. Still, for all it's good qualities there are a half dozen bad ones and I can't in good conscious recommend it when such contemporary classics as Manhunter and Vampires Kiss have gone widely unwatched.

All in all, it's a decent movie that may be worth your time but definately is not worth your nine dollars.

4 of 4 found the following review helpful:

Watch The Watcher (3.5 Stars)  Aug 28, 2005
By Kevin "Does Movies"
The Watcher has been in in my video store's DVD collection since it was released on DVD. My video store was robbed once, and that one had been rented before the robbing hence the copy was still there. Ever since it was released I had been meaning to rent it. The cover always looked at me and made me want to see it. But I always found myself saying "Meh, I'll rent it next time". I finally got around to it yesterday and I popped it into my DVD player and realized "I have no clue what this movie is about".

This movie is about a detective Joel Campbell who had been tracking a serial killer but never caught him. After several failures he decided to move to Chicago. The serial killer "missed" him in a sick and twisted way so he moved to Chicago as well to start his murders there. As he used to, he started sending pictures of his victims to Joel and that is where the fun begins.

I found that Keanu Reevs made an excellent villain. He was perfectly believable as a pathetic, scum bag killer. James Spade also did a great job. But this movie was lacking something. I guess it was lacking a lot of suspence. It had its tense moments here and there but nothing that made you gasp or jump out of your seat. Also one (very minor) problem I had was the Mitch character. He seemed like he hated Joel so much but his hatred quickly disapeared. This movie was still intriguing enough and kept me entertained! Id' recommed watching the Watcher!

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