VoML Post-film Report: Surveillance (2008)

TOP BILLED ACTORS
Bill Pullman, Julia Ormond, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, Michael Ironside, Kent Harper, French Stewart, Cheri Oteri, Caroline Aaron, Gill Gayle

DIRECTOR
Jennifer Chambers Lynch

3 POSITIVES

• Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond both give good performances, playing characters unlike any they've ever portrayed.
  
• Movies like these are often about the twist and in this case, I did not see it coming until it was upon me. After the revelation, there is an interesting scene that presents a theory as to why the killers do what they do.
• I’m not a fan of horror movies because frankly I’m constantly worried about seeing something I can’t unsee, but I do appreciate the thriller/horror genre where the filmmaker uses tension to scare rather than constant violence and gore. The tension was kept up fairly well for much of this film. My heart was racing, not simply because I was disgusted (as I am with most modern horror films), but because I knew something bad was going to happen. The things these travelers did to keep themselves entertained (police officer and traveler alike) while traveling the lonely stretch of road we’ve all traveled only adds to the stress as we are left to think, “what horrible thing will happen to these people?” We know who was there and who survived but what happened to everybody else and who did it?

3 NEGATIVES

• I realize we’re talking about small town, middle of nowhere cops here but how did one police station manage to go 4 for 4 on hiring dipshit deputies. I’m assuming that the highway patrol manual for any of the 50 states doesn’t recommend shooting out tires of moving vehicles, harassing drivers with firearms, or dropping “whore” and “crackhead” bombs on victims of heinous crimes. Think Super Troopers minus comedy plus sadism.
• Somebody is going to have to explain the fateful van scene to me. I would be giving up too much to really talk about it, but there are too many unbelievable and unexplainable things happening in this scene to ignore. Even after mixing in shock, the idiocy of the troopers, and the Superhuman Psycho Corollary, I’m still at a loss.
• The interview scenes were way too choppy. 3 victims are interviewed by 3 different people (or groups of people) at the same time, with a Big Brother type viewing all 3 in a room with 3 monitors. I understand the use of flashbacks to tell each person’s story but the timing is confusing. They are all being interviewed at once, but each person’s flashback starts at the beginning of their day, long before their lives intersect. When the point of view shifts from one person to the other, it actually looks like those people are just sitting in a room, waiting their turn to tell their story. There isn’t any indication of how much time has passed throughout the entire interview process. Basically, the 3 interviews were a poorly constructed front to allow each person to tell their stories. We view the same string of events from each point of view, but people change their stories to take out everything that makes them look bad. However, as viewers we see what actually happened throughout, so no real doubt is left in our mind as to the actual chain of events. We aren’t seeing each story exactly as told, we are seeing them exactly as they happen. Had it been done the other way, the tension could have been ratcheted up as there would have been more of a “everybody is a suspect” feel to it. As is, I didn’t really have that feeling.

BEST PERFORMANCE
Bill Pullman as Sam Hallaway

MOST UNDERRATED PERFORMANCE
Julia Ormond as Elizabeth Anderson

HEY, IT'S THAT GUY...
French Stewart of Third Rock from the Sun as a highway patrolman (good). Cheri Oteri from SNL as a wife/mother on a vacation from hell (distracting).

REMINDED ME OF...
Funny Games, Rashomon

WOULD I PURCHASE IT? - No

WOULD I WATCH IT IF I CAME ACROSS IT ON CABLE? - No

I will give...

-PSon