The Watcher

The actors cannot be faulted. They bring more to the story than it really deserves. more

Has its compelling moments, and its playfully inventive ones, too. more

It's still the same sick story. Even the small touches seem stale. more

This thriller largely succeeds in putting quotation marks around its use of genre conventions, mixing subtlety and overkill to create a pensive mood that transcends the plot. more

What distinguishes The Watcher from all the films it consciously or unconsciously emulates is the intermittently witty, offbeat writing of debuting screenwriter David Elliot. more

Reeves is a stiff dancer and he delivers his lines in a full leather jacket monotone. more

The satisfaction of watching it essentially boils down to seeing whether or not Reeves can pull it off. more

If Reeves weren't onboard this picture would have gone straight to video. more

Leaves me wanting to watch Tomei and company in something more worthy of their abilities. more

Sluggish and preposterous, full of violence and cliches. more

There are two reasons why you should buy this flick, excellent performances from Keanu Reeves and James Spader, and an awesome sound track! The relationship between Keanu and Spader are natural and convincing. I like Keanu in the "Bad Guy" role; he puts his laid-back style into the role and totally sells it. I've read some reviews that knock his performance here, I obviously don't agree! His laid back style is a breath of fresh air from the "off the wall, over energetic, borderline spastic" killers that we usually see in this kind of role. In fact, Keanu's demeanor makes the character even... more

The main thing that made me want to see this movie was to see if Keanu Reeves could pull off the whole serial killer thing. I was impressed with his performance. Actually I was impressed with the whole thing. It was done tastefully and well. It was really nice to see James Spader finally in another movie. In my opinion, he's a very under-rated actor. The main plot line follows Spader's character. He's an ex FBI agent that before leaving was heading a major investigation looking for a serial killer named David Allen Griffin. Griffin (Reeves) is fixated on Spader and wants him back in the... more

"The Watcher" looks and sounds like a made-for-cable-TV thriller about a stalker/serial killer. I was surprised to learn that it got a theatrical release, which I think accounts for its many poor reviews. This isn't a terrible film by any means. Instead, it's a time killer that fans of either James Spader or Keanu Reeves will probably get a kick out of and there's some lovely location footage of Chicago to boot. Keanu Reeves plays a serial killer from James Spader's past. He tracks the former FBI agent down and starts killing young women again. This forces Spader to resume his career as an... more