Just doing our bloody job, mam. A scene from Surveillance.In hot blood.
By Ed Rampell
If you want to watch Julia Ormond or Bill Pullman or Cheri Oteri in light romantic and/or comedy roles, rent DVDs of Sabrina, Sleepless in Seattle or Saturday Night Live. don't watch Surveillance.
By far the most frightening feature I’ve seen since No Country for Old Men, with the most terrifying villain(s) this side of Javier Bardem’s relentless, unstoppable killing machine Anton Chigurh in that Coen Brothers Oscar-winner. Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance has all the preternatural creepiness that is the hallmark of the work of her father, Twin Peak-er David Lynch, Surveillance’s executive producer.
This is Blue Velvet, Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr. on overdrive and high octane. From the get-go in a horrifying title sequence, some serious serial killers are on the loose, slicing and dicing their ways across the Midwest. The Feds are dispatched to assist the outgunned and outwitted local police force of this Smalltown, USA, whose unprofessional excessive (if gleeful) use of force would make Rodney King and ex-LAPD chief Daryl Gates feel right at home. The French Connection’s hardboiled detective Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his more easy-going partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) would also admire their turning of the “good cop/bad cop” shtick into a high art form.
A Middle American family including Mom (Oteri) and her innocent if prescient daughter. Stephanie (Ryan Simpkins), are taking a not-so-happy road trip and druggies Johnny (Mac Miller) and Bobbi (with Pell James skillfully playing the archetypal bad girl to the hilt) are ensnared in the madness and mayhem of multiple murderers and Smalltown’s finest (including French Stewart and Kent Harper as Officers Jim Conrad and Jack Bennett and Michael Ironside as Captain Billings). Pullman and Ormond arrive at the piss ant courthouse as the new sheriffs in town, FBI agents Sam Hallaway and Elizabeth Anderson, who will crack the crimes while interviewing witnesses with their fancy schmancy high tech surveillance equipment and techniques.
The latter probably accounts for this movie’s title, however, given our day and age of warrentless wiretapping, government eavesdropping and big brother watching you, this is probably a misnomer. Nevertheless, the story, which was co-written by Lynch and Kent Harper, has a sly plot twist that I didn’t see coming from a mile away. Amidst all of the bloodshed, only one of the characters does in this excessively violent but skillfully directed switcheroo that will keep viewers on the proverbial edge of their seats.
This is Blue Velvet, Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr. on overdrive and high octane. From the get-go in a horrifying title sequence, some serious serial killers are on the loose, slicing and dicing their ways across the Midwest. The Feds are dispatched to assist the outgunned and outwitted local police force of this Smalltown, USA, whose unprofessional excessive (if gleeful) use of force would make Rodney King and ex-LAPD chief Daryl Gates feel right at home. The French Connection’s hardboiled detective Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his more easy-going partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) would also admire their turning of the “good cop/bad cop” shtick into a high art form.
A Middle American family including Mom (Oteri) and her innocent if prescient daughter. Stephanie (Ryan Simpkins), are taking a not-so-happy road trip and druggies Johnny (Mac Miller) and Bobbi (with Pell James skillfully playing the archetypal bad girl to the hilt) are ensnared in the madness and mayhem of multiple murderers and Smalltown’s finest (including French Stewart and Kent Harper as Officers Jim Conrad and Jack Bennett and Michael Ironside as Captain Billings). Pullman and Ormond arrive at the piss ant courthouse as the new sheriffs in town, FBI agents Sam Hallaway and Elizabeth Anderson, who will crack the crimes while interviewing witnesses with their fancy schmancy high tech surveillance equipment and techniques.
The latter probably accounts for this movie’s title, however, given our day and age of warrentless wiretapping, government eavesdropping and big brother watching you, this is probably a misnomer. Nevertheless, the story, which was co-written by Lynch and Kent Harper, has a sly plot twist that I didn’t see coming from a mile away. Amidst all of the bloodshed, only one of the characters does in this excessively violent but skillfully directed switcheroo that will keep viewers on the proverbial edge of their seats.
If being scared out of your wits is your cup of blood, then Surveillance is for you.
