The Watcher
Dude, Keanu's like, a serial killer, and shit.

James Spader makes a break for it on the set of The Watcher. He was quickly intercepted by a burly gaffer.

When Joel Campbell leaves his Los Angeles home and moves himself to Chicago, he thinks he's finally free of the terrible murder case that's ruined his life. He's going to see a therapist. He's taking lots of drugs. He'd like to think he's on the mend. But as it turns out, it's not that easy to shake the past, and the serial killer who dogged his steps and killed his girlfriend follows him to Chicago to continue their "special" relationship.

Okay, so that's pretty much what you'll be seeing on the back of the video box -- and believe me, you'll be seeing The Watcher on video sooner than you think. The truth is, I couldn't really come up with a detailed synopsis of this film because it was so completely unmemorable that I'm having a hard time remembering what happened. There was Keanu lurking around, and James Spader popping pills, and quite a few unsuspecting women being strangled to death. There's even a part where Spader injects some heavy-duty medication by sticking a needle right in his stomach, which is really gratuitous and frankly not at all cool like when that dude stuck the needle in his eye for Pitch Black.

Mostly what I remember is the flashbacks. They were frequent, repetitive, and altogether annoying, not just because James Spader has bad hair in them but because they remind me of South Park. And not in a good way. Did you ever see that episode where the boys are in shop class, and their shop teacher keeps having live-action flashbacks to his pilot girlfriend? She keeps capering in front of the camera and going, "Catch me, Richard! Oh, Richard! I love you, Richard!" in a complete cheesy way. On South Park they did this because it was funny. In The Watcher they do essentially the same thing, but I guess nobody told them how silly it is. And just for a twist (if you want to call it that), Spader's flashback-girlfriend just happened to be married, and not to him. I get the feeling that I'm supposed to find this surprising or something, but I don't. Anyway, she falls victim to Keanu the serial killer and gets burned alive, but I was more traumatized by the horribly filmed, terribly cut and completely extraneous flashback sequences than I was by her grisly demise.

Keanu Reeves tries to do the world a favor by making Marisa Tomei his next victim.

When this serial killer follows Joel to Chicago, he decides to make Joel's job a little easier on him by sending him photos of the girls and giving him twenty-four hours to find them and save their lives. Joel has a lot of trouble with this, and the general theme is that society's so packed with people and everyone's so jaded to the world that nobody notices all the people around them. Anyway, a bunch of girls die. Then the killer goes after Joel's psychiatrist, Polly (Marisa Tomei). My theory is that he doesn't do this to get at Joel, but clearly recognizes that this woman just needs to die.

Joel does some stupid shit, and takes a lot of meds to get through the film (Damn, I should have done that), but I think it goes without saying that he saves his shrink, ices poor killer-Keanu, and wins the day. And I must congratulate anyone who sits through the film long enough to find that out, though it doesn't really take any sort of stretch of the imagination to figure it out without seeing any of the film at all.

Oh, wait. Did I mention that Keanu dances? Seriously. He does this little "I am bad-ass serial killer, watch me shake my groove thing" dance. They don't just show it once... they show it twice. And it really doesn't make much sense either time, though it is kinda funny. Unfortunately, despite my high hopes, Keanu does nothing remarkable here and only perpetuates the idea that he's an idiot. James Spader tries very, very hard, but doesn't manage to salvage even the tattered remains of his dignity, and Marisa Tomei really just needs to stop. The film itself isn't really good or bad but frightfully mediocre, to be somewhat enjoyed by those with very low expectations, and quickly forgotten by everyone else.

DROOL FACTOR: Keanu's okay, I guess, but he just isn't doin' it for me. James Spader is pretty cute, though.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Plenty of blood and dead bodies here, but there's really not a lot of gore, and nothing that today's audiences would find particularly traumatic.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: There's a girl in this film who smacks Keanu in the brain with some cheap electronics. I dug her. But pretty much all the women die, victims of violent crime, so it's not exactly an inspirational commercial on the strength of the female spirit.

-- Lisa Kincaid

The Watcher is currently playing in theaters across the US.

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