My TV Guide gives this one and a half stars out of four, pretty low. I don't know why. For most of the time, it's an enthralling story of a young man whose fortunes are in decline because of self-destructive acts and who, in true paranoid fashion, projects the malevolence onto someone else, an Islamic neighbor who appears to be affiliated with some mysterious Arab organization.
Peter Krause does an excellent job as the plain, not-unpleasant-looking accountant who has been fired twice for being abrasive and who now is having trouble finding work. His wife, Kari Matchett, is equally good but has less screen time.
Between angry calls to potential employers, Krause occupies his time looking out the window of his endangered condominium. He begins to focus on his swarthy and handsome young neighbor, the Egyptian actor Khaled Abol Naga. Naga comes and goes at odd hours. He has dark-skinned visitors who bring him cardboard boxes that look ominous to Krause.
He calls the FBI and nags them into a meeting with one of their agents, the mild-looking, somewhat goofy Richard Schiff. Schiff takes down all the information that Krause has -- and there's not much there -- and records his suspicions, then gives him a pat on the back and tells him to report any further strange activities but to otherwise leave it to the FBI.
Krause is unable to do that. He sneaks into Naga's apartment, rummages through a mysterious assemblage of bottles, some chemical equipment, and myriad ATM deposit envelopes. Krause interprets the bottles as containing liquid explosives, and the ATM envelopes as instruments for laundering terrorist funds.
Becoming obsessed, Krause insists on another meeting with the FBI agent. He explains to Schiff what he found in Naga's apartment, but instead of gratitude his presentation is met with anger and a warning that he, Krause, has broken the law and should now divorce himself from his concern with his neighbor.
His wife finds out about his increasing involvement and, faced with his growing agitation, she leaves him.
One afternoon he returns to his apartment, finds the door open, creeps in to find the intruder, but discovers only the shower running in an empty bath tub. He begins to carry a loaded pistol.
Krause's next step is to visit the Islamic neighbor with the gun tucked under the back of his belt. "We'd better have this out, the window thing," he tells Naga. But Naga misunderstands and is short with him. "Look, man, if you prefer men to women, why don't you just come right out and tell your wife about it?" That's the wrong thing to say to a gun-toting paranoid. The wind up has Naga tied to a chair, Krause holding a gun to his head, and the place surrounded by the police that have been called by Krause's wife. The resolution isn't a happy one. Krause winds up in a psychiatric facility.
Now, so far, this is an intelligently written thriller. And the acting is effective all the way around, even down to the smaller roles. And it's a good thing that everything else is so good because the direction almost torpedoes the story.
The shooting and editing are almost desperately hip. The pallet is from the now overly familiar ghoulish green portion of the color spectrum. There are multiple instantaneous inserts that zip by before they can be apprehended. This technique isn't "bad" in itself. It could be used, say, as objective correlates of Krause's breakdown. But it's not. Images flash before our eyes without relationship to any fragmentation taking place in Krause's mind. They just add zap to the tempo. And, frankly, I winced when the accountant pulls out his pistol and holds it sideways as he points it at an antagonist. That's the most unkindest cliché of all. It's used by directors who haven't thought out their story. Perhaps the most important scene -- a furious one of accusation and counter-accusation between Krause with his gun and the bound Naga -- is ruined by a trembling camera and a pounding thumping on the score, suggesting an earthquake of great magnitude. One expects everything to fall apart on the screen. A terrible job, unworthy of the script and the performances.
Except in the last scene, in which everything we've learned about the characters actually does collapse upon itself. Krause is watching the news on the funny farm's TV and an item comes us about cyanide in the glue on ATM deposit envelopes, leading to multiple fatalities. Well, what the hell is this? Is Krause now openly hallucinating? Or is he actually a hero, a man who saw the danger coming and acted preemptively, despite the indifference of his own government, and in the process sacrificed himself?
Here's my own paranoid delusion. Naga was never meant to be the terrorist Krause believes him to be. But the people behind the film couldn't allow Krause to be anything other than a true patriot. There are too many potential viewers who NEED Krause to be a one-man army and fight swarthy people. They're the enemy, aren't they? All those illegals? And the FBI and the government it represents is both stupid and impotent for insisting that laws must be followed? A few weeks ago, as I write this, a deranged man, angry at being hounded for taxes, flew his airplane into a government building, causing several casualties and killing himself. A few DAYS ago, another man entered the Pentagon and began spraying lead around before he was killed. The first madman's blog, before it was withdrawn from the internet, was filled with laudatory comments. The general message was, yes, we have to take matters into our own hands.
A fine story about paranoia and the role of the media in promoting it, almost spoiled by directorial excess and by cowardice.
Peter Krause does an excellent job as the plain, not-unpleasant-looking accountant who has been fired twice for being abrasive and who now is having trouble finding work. His wife, Kari Matchett, is equally good but has less screen time.
Between angry calls to potential employers, Krause occupies his time looking out the window of his endangered condominium. He begins to focus on his swarthy and handsome young neighbor, the Egyptian actor Khaled Abol Naga. Naga comes and goes at odd hours. He has dark-skinned visitors who bring him cardboard boxes that look ominous to Krause.
He calls the FBI and nags them into a meeting with one of their agents, the mild-looking, somewhat goofy Richard Schiff. Schiff takes down all the information that Krause has -- and there's not much there -- and records his suspicions, then gives him a pat on the back and tells him to report any further strange activities but to otherwise leave it to the FBI.
Krause is unable to do that. He sneaks into Naga's apartment, rummages through a mysterious assemblage of bottles, some chemical equipment, and myriad ATM deposit envelopes. Krause interprets the bottles as containing liquid explosives, and the ATM envelopes as instruments for laundering terrorist funds.
Becoming obsessed, Krause insists on another meeting with the FBI agent. He explains to Schiff what he found in Naga's apartment, but instead of gratitude his presentation is met with anger and a warning that he, Krause, has broken the law and should now divorce himself from his concern with his neighbor.
His wife finds out about his increasing involvement and, faced with his growing agitation, she leaves him.
One afternoon he returns to his apartment, finds the door open, creeps in to find the intruder, but discovers only the shower running in an empty bath tub. He begins to carry a loaded pistol.
Krause's next step is to visit the Islamic neighbor with the gun tucked under the back of his belt. "We'd better have this out, the window thing," he tells Naga. But Naga misunderstands and is short with him. "Look, man, if you prefer men to women, why don't you just come right out and tell your wife about it?" That's the wrong thing to say to a gun-toting paranoid. The wind up has Naga tied to a chair, Krause holding a gun to his head, and the place surrounded by the police that have been called by Krause's wife. The resolution isn't a happy one. Krause winds up in a psychiatric facility.
Now, so far, this is an intelligently written thriller. And the acting is effective all the way around, even down to the smaller roles. And it's a good thing that everything else is so good because the direction almost torpedoes the story.
The shooting and editing are almost desperately hip. The pallet is from the now overly familiar ghoulish green portion of the color spectrum. There are multiple instantaneous inserts that zip by before they can be apprehended. This technique isn't "bad" in itself. It could be used, say, as objective correlates of Krause's breakdown. But it's not. Images flash before our eyes without relationship to any fragmentation taking place in Krause's mind. They just add zap to the tempo. And, frankly, I winced when the accountant pulls out his pistol and holds it sideways as he points it at an antagonist. That's the most unkindest cliché of all. It's used by directors who haven't thought out their story. Perhaps the most important scene -- a furious one of accusation and counter-accusation between Krause with his gun and the bound Naga -- is ruined by a trembling camera and a pounding thumping on the score, suggesting an earthquake of great magnitude. One expects everything to fall apart on the screen. A terrible job, unworthy of the script and the performances.
Except in the last scene, in which everything we've learned about the characters actually does collapse upon itself. Krause is watching the news on the funny farm's TV and an item comes us about cyanide in the glue on ATM deposit envelopes, leading to multiple fatalities. Well, what the hell is this? Is Krause now openly hallucinating? Or is he actually a hero, a man who saw the danger coming and acted preemptively, despite the indifference of his own government, and in the process sacrificed himself?
Here's my own paranoid delusion. Naga was never meant to be the terrorist Krause believes him to be. But the people behind the film couldn't allow Krause to be anything other than a true patriot. There are too many potential viewers who NEED Krause to be a one-man army and fight swarthy people. They're the enemy, aren't they? All those illegals? And the FBI and the government it represents is both stupid and impotent for insisting that laws must be followed? A few weeks ago, as I write this, a deranged man, angry at being hounded for taxes, flew his airplane into a government building, causing several casualties and killing himself. A few DAYS ago, another man entered the Pentagon and began spraying lead around before he was killed. The first madman's blog, before it was withdrawn from the internet, was filled with laudatory comments. The general message was, yes, we have to take matters into our own hands.
A fine story about paranoia and the role of the media in promoting it, almost spoiled by directorial excess and by cowardice.