Surveillance - BD
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Page 1 of 3 Magnolia / 2009 / Rated R / 97 Minutes / Street Date: August 18, 2009
The good cop/bad cop thing has been done before and done quite often - Hell, Martin Scorsese made a career for himself making movies about the tumult of good and evil on the streets where guys in cop uniforms are sometimes more evil than the thugs they drag to the drunk tank - and often times the only thing a cop thriller has to offer is uniqueness of tone. Jennifer Lynch's dad did a great job of fusing the steely, scientific attitudes of a police force with the percolating oddity of small-town ethos in Twin Peaks, and while Jennifer's Surveillance is no Twin Peaks (boy, I bet she's tired of hearing that...), what it has going for it is a singularity in terms of pace and style. The film is a multi-faceted drama about a pair of FBI agents (Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman) who arrive in a corn-yellow small town to investigate a rash of gnarly murders. But Surveillance makes very little deal of the crime they're in town to analyze - instead, Lynch turns her camera toward a revolving door of witnesses, police force notables and various random folks who have very personal (and less than air-tight) recollections of events that led up to the events that brought the feds to town. Coke dealers, snorters, young lovers who love Violent Femmes music, blonde girls with secrets to keep - once Surveillance kicks into high gear, it's a buffet-style he-said-she-said where everybody has a reason to lie, and nobody knows who's telling the truth. And while at the end of the day, Surveillance doesn't wildly succeed dramatically, its cast, pace and construction make it the kind of movie you simply have to finish once you start. Pullman and Ormond have an excellent chemistry on screen, but their presence pales in comparison to the often monster-bizarre turns from various supporting thespians. Cheri Oteri (of SNL fame) does wonders with her tiny part, Pell James and French Stewart (yes, that French Stewart) are equal parts crazy and mesmerizing in their roles - the casting in Surveillance on its own accord is worth the price of admission. Yet, like Lynch's own Boxing Helena, rewatchability with Surveillance is probably minimal. It's intriguing to watch such a gritty, meandering picture unfold, but once you see where it's all headed, its cinematic sheen only constructs a moderate case for repeat viewings. However, if you like your crime pictures weird, bloody, and what-the-Hell? unpredictable, Surveillance, with its violent tonal singularity might just give you the grisly thrill of a unique cop-picture curio. And it's got a helluva ending... |
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