User Reviews

"Surveillance" starts so promising... its a pretty raw movie and from the obscure opening on to the landscape shots, introduction of the characters until the unfolding of the stories begins its interesting while not using any music or effects or whatever. Basically the movie is about a couple of FBI agents who are interrogating three survivors of a bloody crime and trying to find out what happened. The way the story is told through the eyes of the different survivors who all got something to hide and therefore all tell different stories while the real occurrences are shown is really interesting and tense. The characters, especially the twisted corrupt cops, the little girl and the drug-addict are also great and everyone in that backwoods police station where the interrogations take place delivers. Funny thing is... to me the 2 FBI agents are the least interesting although they are the main characters.

So the whole story is unfolding, interweaving different points of views and everyone being suspicious, the crime is even shown in a pretty brutal way and the movie has a strange nihilistic feeling to it right until the bleak closing shot. Especially the way how the corrupt cops act out somehow really got to me.

But then in its most important part, the final resolution of the story they go for a twist of the most idiotic kind...

SPOILER ALERT:

The FBI agents are the killers and the whole movie was just a kind of sick mind game. Yeah, pretty smart... problem is that nothing makes any sense at all. You don't get explanations to why they make such a big hassle of interrogating everyone for hours just to kill them in the end and having some strange sexual pleasure of it. Sure, the real FBI agents are found dead in a hotel room and identified by their badges, but how the hell our 2 smartasses identified themselves as FBI agents? How did they learn to set up and operate their interrogation surveillance equipment and why does the little girl only tell her secrets to the most demented people around... first the cops after harassing her family, then the killer who killed her family. No explanation in any of the actions of her or her family. Its just a bad twist turning the whole movie upside down and leaving you with a total mess of a story that looked so promising when you didn't yet know what was happening.

Until the last quarter I really liked "Surveillance", then i started to hate it. I guess that still makes it a clean average movie...

Without a doubt, the biggest waste of film of the year. This movie is poorly structured, sadistic, cruel and filled with unlikable characters. On top of that, and maybe the worst crime, it's uninteresting and vastly predictable. As soon as Bill Pullman's character doodled on the photo changing the word from "evidence" to "violence," I had the entire plot figured out. There are no surprises and there is no compelling reason to watch this trash. The only redeeming feature for me is that I saw this thing for free on my HDNet cable and didn't waste any money. I would truly be angry if I had paid to see it in a theatre.

Anyone that labels this thing a thriller really needs to get out more. An awful, awful film in every way that matters.

This movie was *good* relatively during the first parts of it.

We have a story, from 3 points of view. So let's find some clues and complete the story.

Oh wait...none of that stuff matters because the FBI guys are the bad guys! Though that was a great twist...it was almost a terrible twist. I immediately downgraded the film from a 7 maybe 8 to 3 based on the last 10-15 minutes of it.

Does anyone else not see why the twist is so bad? Yes, it's a good shock. But it is bad because it has absolutely nothing to do with the preceding hour and twenty minutes. There's no connection to the killers.

The killers are in about all of 5 minutes of this movie (as killers) and the two FBI agents are only in 15 minutes of the previous hour and twenty.

We get it...surveillance...Oh, the Killers are voyeurs. WHICH MAKES NO SENSE, because they were only described in limited terms as just being psychopaths. And the hour and twenty minutes of surveillance we are watching of the 3 stories goes out the window as everyone is dead in 5 minutes.

All of this makes the ending even more ridiculous. Oh, they killed a bunch of FBI agents in the beginning...what FBI agents sleep together? All in the same room. To be found and murdered by amateurs and then impersonated by people who know nothing about being FBI agents? A cop 3 feet away apparently can't hit either one with a standard police issue pistol that can shoot several shots. I hate movies that try to make you feel like this could be real when they make absurd leaps they think we will believe.

The other thing is the movie ends about 10-15 minutes after they are revealed as the killers with a girl standing in the field somewhere...

In terms of editing, directing, acting, writing and casting, this film would be a 10+. But it's just too disturbing--and calling this film "disturbing" is like saying Gone with the Wind is a "nice story". This is a festival of twisted perversity in a Bancock back room. And the depth is unexpected. The subconscious crescendo of vile perspectives is unmatched in film. (This poor writer--sometimes you have to feel sorry for such brilliance when it reveals such scary stuff.) One thing for sure: this is Bill Pullman's performance of a lifetime. And I highly recommend you skip it, unless you can tolerate sweaty nightmares and obsessive checking of the locks on your doors. Pullman is no love-sick 30-something here. He's a cross between Hannibal Lechter and the blue-collar genre of Dennis Hopper, all wrapped up in your worst nightmare. Surveillance is an X-rated movie without the skin.

Jennifer Lynch's first feature since "Boxing Helena" is the worst film I've seen this year. The script is an inept mess and the direction is clueless. The characters are cardboard cutouts with indecipherable motivations. Editing-wise, this looks like a salvage job. FBI agents are investigating a series of murders. Which means they are also investigating themselves. Jennifer is not David, but she tries to be. The problem is, she doesn't have his talent or his ability to create a real, identifiable world into which darkness can be threaded. This is all darkness and all misery. Lynch opts for a cynical, boring, pandering "thriller" with no thrills. The violence is graphic at times, but it has no context. Worse, there is not one character we care about. That this sorry nonsense just won top prize at Sitges (over the way superior "Martyrs" and the fresh "Let The Right One In") is a disgrace, and undermines that fine festival's credibility. Don't believe any hype about this. It's abysmal.

This film was ruined, as far as I can see, by the twist at the end, and by the directing in most parts. Until the twist was revealed, I'd assumed that Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond were simply giving the worst performances of their careers. As it happens, they were doing a reasonable job, but to no avail.

The dialogue was utterly abysmal. I think Lynch is trying to create an atmosphere of complete discomfort for the audience by employing this 'trick', but instead it only serves to hamper any character development. Rather than create a creepy-but-socially-adaptable character in Sam Hallaway, Pullman and Lynch have turned him into someone who appears to be suffering from the after-effects of a lobotomy. He also spends the entire film looking like he has a cricked neck, which looked utterly stupid.

Essentially it's a good premise for a film, and it was occasionally tense and gripping. However, there's something missing, and I felt that whatever it was turned what could have been a great thriller into something slightly farcical.

Terrific. I felt the presence of a Lynch, one invested like her parents were in "Velvet" in working with ordinary story elements. But she blows them up, deconstructs and scrambles them as an embedded metanarrative.

If you have not seen this, please do not read further.

This filmmaker has mastered three things. She knows how to make images that penetrate; she knows how to make transitions between them in such a way that they grow narrative; she knows how to fold in the viewer by playing games with the shifts in perspective of the narrative, triggered by the very thing that makes the images sear.

The basic setup is a couple of highway cops who waylay motorists and severely hassle them. They do this as a show for each other. We witness the truth of this cruelty through flashbacks after a traumatic event.

In what seems a parallel reality we have a pair of serial killers, chased by a couple FBI agents. They have been killing for a long time, brutally. The enclosing story is that we have the FBI couple entering the police station to get statements. It seems that in some way unknown to us at first, the pair of bad cops and the pair of killers encountered each other. Three cars worth of passengers are killed, plus one of the cops and we share space with the FBI couple and their cameras as the truth is revealed.

There are three survivors: one of the cops, who lies; a pretty young woman who is a junky; and a ten year old girl who is more alert than we are.

We hear testimony, but see what really happened with the three witnesses and is left out. We see and know what they have, not what they are reporting. Early in the game it becomes obvious that there are two groups of detectives here. The obvious ones are the FBI couple, who we discover are lovers. Julia Ormond is a real actress here. Who knew? The other group of detectives are the three witnesses. This is placed subconsciously as we participate not in what they reveal to the FBI, but what was actually revealed to them.

Near the end, the reversal is jarringly made complete when we discover that the FBI agents are actually the serial killers playing a role. Two of the witnesses are killed. Of the three, they are the witless ones; only the little girl survives. She has escaped, and at the end rediscovered but let go. She must have been, to bear witness for us.

The folds are clever and perfect. The sliding narrative is slippery in a crafty way. What most viewers will see is the strangely brutal world in images, but it is the other that gives this power.

Great, great film-making.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I should start by saying that this isn't a bad film. It's worth watching simply to see this set of characters in action. But the list of problems starts early, and grows quickly.

David Lynch's influence is evident throughout the film. That works both for and against Jennifer, as she carries-on a few bad habits from her father. Surrealistic elements would have been appropriate in some places, but not where they're used here. Less telegraphing would have been a huge bonus. A little more time in the editing suite would have helped this film greatly. Acting-wise, if Pullman and Ormond had played their roles a little more "straight", that would have made the twist much more effective. Both the script and story fail the audience in the end. The audience is rooting for the "civilians" in this film, and to have them turn the tables somehow would have made this film much more satisfying, overall. The character of Stephanie was written very intelligently, and it would have been great to see her engineer the "unmasking" and possibly the villains' downfall.

There are things that work here, though. Pell James was actually wonderful in her role, and I hope to see more of her in the future. Ryan Simpkins may turn into the next Jodie Foster, and her abilities are on full display here.

The cinematography is solid, and the visual direction of the film is good. Where the direction fails is mostly in character-portrayal and in the handling of the story/script. If a little more effort had been put into these areas, this could have been a great film. As it is, it is an interesting piece of work, but there's not a lot to recommend about it.

An excellent film. Beautifully shot.

Don't go see a violent film if you can't tolerate violence. I agree this film seems to follow a trend in "Serial Killers in the American West" but it doesn't make it any less important.

It's not exactly a date movie and there were some disturbing shots, but overall a joy to watch for the dedicated horror/suspense buffs.

The only point I will concede is that while Bill Pullman was an excellent bad guy, I did notice he was ACTING like a bad guy from the very beginning.

That said, I'm definitely recommending it.

After the first few minutes of this movie, I was leaning on the fast-forward button. After a few minutes more, I realized I'd already "watched" this movie before - also on fast forward. Neither time did anything catch my attention.

************* Possible Spoilers ********** The movie opens with instant gore, mayhem and murder a la fashion of a slasher flick. Of course, it is dark, so you cannot see what is happening.

Clichéd at best, two bored small town cops are petty dictators in their rural, boring patrol beat, so they terrorize innocent people and threaten them with their guns. Oh, and they're drinking on the job. Of course, their is tension and friction when the FBI get involved.

The FBI agents are "go get my coffee and unload my car" mentality to the local yokel's.

The young innocent girl survivor who has to tell her stories by drawing crayon pictures of what happened. And the story gets dragged to its sad conclusion.

I do not recommend this movie for anyone at any price (I got it from the library, so at least i did not loose money) unless you have tired of watching paint dry.

***SPOILER ALERT*** Bizarre crime thriller involving these two masked serial killers who have left a bloody trail of some two dozen bodies in their murderous rampage across the South-Western USA. The only surviving victims of the masked killers are Officer Jack Bennet, Kent Harper, drug user Bobbie Prescott, Pell James, and eight-your old Stephanie, Ryan Simpkins, who's entire family was wiped out by the serial killers.

Having FBI Agents Liz Anderson & Sam Hallaway, Julia Ormond & Bill Pullman, sent down to New Mexico to investigate the case they get little cooperation from both Officer Bennet and Bobbie Prescott in trying to find out who the serial killers, and what their motives, are. It turns out that Bennet and his partner the now murdered , by the killers, Jim Conrad, French Stewart, have been anything but good cops-in their idiotic and vicious good cop bad cop routine-and in a way were as much as responsible in what happened to the killer victims as the killers themselves were! As for Bobbie she in being a both drug addict and seller, Bobbie and her boyfriend had ripped off their drug supplier after he overdosed on his own coke, may very well end up going to jail if she tells Agents Anderson & Hallaway about the circumstances that got her into the mess, involved in a mass murder, that she finds herself in now.

It's little and Innocent Stephanie who's eyewitness account of what happened-in the highway mass murder-they may well crack the case wide open for the investigating FBI Agent. Stephanie not only saw what happened but also can identify the two killers!****SPOILERS**** This leads the killers to show their hand and come out into the open. This also leads to one of the most horrific surprising as well and gut churning massacres in motion picture history!

Fascinating as well as disturbing movie that shows how sick and dangerous people can be and at the same time keep their sickness hidden from view and the public until the right time, for them to go into their murderous actions, comes along. The shocking as well as surprising ending in the movie leaves the audience almost speechless in that the killers, who were unknown up until then, practically morph-from being normal-into the cold-blooded and psychotic devils that they really are!

There's also in the film the very talented as well as underrated actor Michael Ironside as police Captain Billings. Ironside is given very little to do with his role as Captain Billings but have him dying to get a free cigarette-as he's at the same time fighting to overcome his tobacco addiction- from FBI Agent Hallawy. Captain Billings did get his wish, a free smoke, but it turned out to be the very last thing that he ever got, besides getting his brains blown out, in his life!

I walked into two films completely blindly the weekend I saw these. I had never heard of Surveillance and yet there it was and I saw on the poster that Bill Pullman starred and I have always enjoyed him in various roles although his roles have gradually diminished over the years. Surveillance clearly came from a certain amount of dark deranged ideas clearly developed by quirky, creepy, film maker David Lynch...errr wait a minute? Clearly the film making daughter of legendary (and acquired taste) director David Lynch caught some of her father's dark, brooding humor and style as Surveillance reeks of that same style. Surveillance has a dash of mystery and suspense, some real twists and turns and despite feeling a little bit predictable the big shocker at the end was still indeed a shocker. For those of you who have seen it and are reading this it was when the little girl pulled the Agent aside that I clued in like a light switch coming on. Nearly the entire film takes place in the tiny little police office with stories being told that flash to the outside world. However some of the character are downright ludicrous and the story is a little out there to follow at times.

As mentioned Bill Pullman plays a lead character as an FBI agent investigating a grisly murder in a small town with his female partner. Pullman is his usual self when playing more serious roles. He puts on this straight face and delivers lines in a mono-toned voice but somehow does have this charisma on screen that I think makes him watchable. However, his performance towards the end of the film works much better than his early part. Julia Ormond plays his partner and as usual I found her quite empty. Ormond just seems completely emotionless and when she does show any real emotion it feels forced and put on. She looks like an aging woman who doesn't want to be aging and tries to act accordingly. Her and Pullman's chemistry as partners is okay and does get better towards the end but it isn't enough to hold the film together. French Stewart and Kent Harper are ridiculously over the top partners that are so incredibly off the wall, hilarious evil, and absurdly inappropriate. Their characters are almost fun and yet they are so incredibly over the top it is hardly tolerable. They would have made better killers than cops. Pell James is the drug addict who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. She does well and shows more emotion than most of them in the film but she doesn't really shine. Literally the definition of a diamond in the rough is ten year old Ryan Simpkins who plays the terrorized little girl. She is terrific and really does some amazing things with her dramatic moments in the film.

I have absolutely no doubt that Surveillance will likely become some sort of cult classic. Jennifer Lynch just may be on the same track as her Dad with her film making style. Reviewers are calling it "visceral" and "disturbing" and there is no doubt that both of those adjectives are very true BUT the cast is a weak point and not believable for the most part. It feels like a potentially great dark movie but somehow falters by being overblown in every way. Still for the offbeat quirky movie lovers they will likely be blown away by this zany off the wall dark, dark, dark!!! comedy/mystery/thriller. Worth checking out but be forewarned about the pratfalls. 6/10

After a very scary, crude opening which gives you that creepy "Chainsaw massacre"-feeling, everything falls apart.

SPOILER ALERT: As soon as the two FBI-officers start jabbing, you know they are the real killers. Anyone who have seen enough of these "fooled-ya"-movies can figure this out.

This movie is mader with one thing in mind: To depict brutal murders. Why, then, is not the little girl tortured and murdered as well? Will this be next for us movie-goers? The torture and abuse of children? Whats wrong with you people? Lynch is truly has a disgusting, ugly mind.