Surveillance

"Surveillance" is the second movie directed by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David. Her first was "Boxing Helena" in 1993, which was greeted by outraged, indignant reviews and very little action at the boxoffice. "Surveillance" received relatively few reviews and also made next to nothing. It was barely even released. There's good reason for the movie being so disdained by critics: it's downbeat and nihilistic, populated with well-drawn but unlikeable characters, plus a couple of dangerous, all-too-convincing murderous psychopaths. Downbeat endings are acceptable if they have earned their gloomy outcomes, if the ending is justified by other aspects of the movie. The ending of "Surveillance" is just grim and nihilistic.

As the movie opens, we get glimpses of a pair of masked intruders surprising a sleeping couple; they kill the man but the woman flees. After the credits, we see a pair of FBI agents, Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) crossing the vast mid-America plains to the tiny town where the murder occurred. The box claims there's a major surprise, but the structure of the film gives away the secret almost immediately. As it turns out, that revelation isn't really a surprise, as the truth becomes apparent before the cover is removed from the story.

Not only was that husband killed and the wife gone missing, but there's been some initially confusing activity out on the flat prairie highway; there are at least two sets of flashbacks. One involves a pair of would-be drug dealers (Mac Miller and Pell James); when they meet with the grimy, down-home drug "lord" who might hire them, he dies of an overdose in front of them. Grabbing the drugs and money, they make a hasty getaway. Stephanie (Ryan Simpkins), about ten, seems to be the only survivor--but of what? Also, officer Jack Bennett (Kent Harper) is being interviewed by police chief Billings (Michael Ironside) and a pair of other cops; Bennett's partner Jim Conrad (French Stewart) has been killed--by whom? The FBI agents watch surveillance screens, sometimes joining in the interrogation, as the various stories are slowly revealed to be part of one big story.

Lynch is very good at eliciting performances that are both unusual--I've never seen Pullman like this--and clearly defined; we soon know what every character on screen is like. And she tells her story, which she co-wrote with Kent Harper (one of the actors), very well--suspense is craftily built, and she uses a few unusual visual techniques. For instance, when Hallaway examines some photos on a wall, we see him through the wall, with the photos now transparencies; I've never seen that idea before. As a director, she doesn't resemble her father very much; he's more wry, more oblique and more daring. For her, "daring" seems to be to try to avoid being a Hollywood-style filmmaker.

The movie doesn't have a commentary track, but it could have used one. There is a track on the deleted scenes, and Lynch makes some eye-opening claims that might have made the movie more palatable. She clearly had something in mind--but just as clearly, her intentions are not apparent from the movie itself. One of the features is an alternate ending, one that would have been more satisfying to most audiences. But that seems to have been exactly what she was avoiding; she didn't want to be predictable. However, she failed to understand that some predictable endings are the right endings; in an effort to avoid being "gratuitous," she damaged her own movie. The ending may have satisfied her artistic goals, but it won't please most audiences. (Admittedly, from the notes on the IMDb page for "Surveillance," it's clear she was right on target for some viewers.)

The choices of which movies are given the Blu-ray treatment and which are not are sometimes mysterious, perplexing, impenetrable. Here is "Surveillance," well-photographed by the little-known Peter Wunstorf, with realistically grungy production design by Sara McCudden. The movie is intentionally bleak, cold and remote--so why has someone spent the money to transfer it to high definition? Very little is gained; the movie would play just about the same in small screen black and white, or even as a radio drama. Here, Blu-ray is almost entirely beside the point.

The acting is top-notch; Bill Pullman has rarely had the opportunity to be this menacing before, but he's very good at it, and clearly having a great time. The featurettes indicate that most of the cast and crew enjoyed the shoot, which must have been pretty damned cold (it was shot on the plains of Canada). But the result, though fascinating to watch on one level, is so heartlessly grim and downbeat that most will regret they watched it at all.

Video quality: Adequate

Sound quality: Adequate

Actors: Bill Pullman, Julia Ormond, Michael Ironside, French Stewart, Kent Harper

Director/co-writer: Jennifer Lynch

Keywords: Murder, suspense, FBI, mid-America, police