Surveillance

Can you tell these two are federal agents?

(2008) Crime Thriller (Magnet) Bill Pullman, Julia Ormond, French Stewart, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, Michael Ironside, Kent Harper, Cheri Oteri, Anita Smith, Mac Miller. Directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch

Life is a matter of perception. What we see, what we experience, is filtered through our own realities. Often, our own personal realities color what we see and experience and so the reality changes, each according to their own flavor.

A brutal murder takes place on a desolate  road in the middle of nowhere. Captain Billings (Ironside) of the local police wants it solved, especially since it involved police officers being filleted. And then in walks Agents Hallaway (Pullman) and Anderson (Ormond), who believe it to be the work of a serial killer they’ve been chasing.

We see what happened through the eyes of three sets of witnesses; a couple of junkies (James, Miller), a family on a road trip vacation (Oteri, Simpkins) and two corrupt and brutal cops (Stewart, Harper). The interrogation takes place in one room while Hallaway watches via closed circuit TV in another. The clues to the masked killers begin to add up and an unpleasant truth begins to get formed.

It took 13 years for Lynch (daughter of David Lynch, auteur of Blue Velvet and “Twin Peaks”) to make her second film after making Boxing Helena, a 1993 gusher about a surgeon who amputates a girlfriend’s arms and legs in order to keep her close by. I’m thinking that she has a very different idea about love and obsession than most of the rest of us.

There is a good deal of violence and brutality here. The camera doesn’t shy from the more sadistic elements of the crime, nor is there any sort of feeling that the filmmaker is either apologizing for the sadism, nor is she reveling in it. It merely is as a matter of course.

There are some fine actors here, including Ormond who is an actress who should have been a huge star; she’s incredibly beautiful and incredibly talented, but for whatever reason, audiences never warmed to her and she never got the roles she should have. Pullman is one of the more likable actors in Hollywood, but here he seems to be involved in a twitch-a-thon, going as over the top as he can. In that sense, he is the most noticeable member of the cast here and so by default, all eyes are drawn to him throughout.

Part of the problem here is that the movie takes a certain course for the first two thirds of the film and then it veers off. While I’m not opposed to that in most cases, it’s almost like watching someone who is calm and collected suddenly turn into a gibbering lunatic before your very eyes in this case. It’s kind of off-putting, especially since aspects of the movie are so unsettling to begin with. It’s definitely a dive into the deep end, if you discovered raw sewage leaking into it. There is a twist at the end but quite frankly it doesn’t come as much of a surprise, for those who are regular moviegoers at least.

Certain filmmakers have a style which doesn’t shy from the darker aspects of life. Jennifer Lynch is one; her father is another. Is it genetic? Doesn’t matter in the least. Sometimes watching movies in that vein can be difficult; it’s like identifying the body of a loved one in the morgue with a coroner who can’t stop gigging.

There are some things here worth checking out; there are also things here that are going to drive you crazy. Whatever the case may be, you won’t walk away from this with a lukewarm feeling. Love it or hate it, Surveillance is going to get a strong reaction from you.

WHY RENT THIS: I like the Rashomon style of storytelling. Pullman is at his quirky best.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Some might find this too sadistic. Ending is a bit too muddled.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some brutal violence, kinky sex, a little bit of drug use and more than enough foul language to make this a definite hard “R.”

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Lynch was the first woman to win the Best Director Prize at the New York Horror Film Festival.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $1.14M on an unreported production budget; the film probably broke even or even made some money.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

TOMORROW: The Green Hornet