FilmBlather.com

The serial killer movie is not dead. It's not even close. The genre is tired, but it can still make for decent thrillers. But now that we've pretty much seen it all, there are only two ways for a serial killer movie to be good. One is for it to be something brilliantly original, daring and spectacular, like The Cell earlier this year. The other way is for it to simply be utilitarian, efficient and effective. The Watcher fits under that category.

James Spader is laden with the most hackneyed of roles: the film's big Tragic Character. He plays detective Joel Campbell, a drugged-up, haunted, exhausted lawman who has moved to Chicago to get away from the work that has posessed him for years: trying to find serial killer David Allen Griffin (Keanu Reeves), who watches women for weeks, learns their routine and then enters their home and strangles them with piano wire.

Unfortunately Griffin, whom Campbell has apparently never seen, has followed him to Chicago. He thinks the two have developed a "special" cat-and-mouse (or something more?) relationship over the years and he doesn't want to end it. To make it easier on Joel, he will now mail him a picture of his next victim and Joel, along with the Chicago police department, will have 24 hours to try to find the ill-fated young woman. Getting ahold of someone just by a picture is a lot harder than it sounds, though; not everyone watches the news or reads the newspapers.

So yes, this is another police-working-against-the-clock movie. Making one of them, especially such a straightforward one, is a risky proposition in this day and age. But this one works, getting increasingly involving as it slides along its well-oiled track. First-time feature director Joe Charbanic employs a lot of cheesy surrealistic camera tricks, especially in his flashback sequences, but they could just as well be ignored. The rest of the film is a terrific police thriller with a scary villain, a superficially sympathetic villain and cat-and-mouse games to make even James Patterson blush.

If The Watcher is to be remembered for anything, it will be the performance of Keanu Reeves who, for the first time ever, has a role that actually involves acting. His casting seems illogical at first, but on reflection, Reeves is a perfect villain. His slow, kindly, deliberate manner of speaking can easily become creepy with a tweak here and there (much like the face of a clown can quickly become menacing with only a little change in the face paint) while his good looks were begging to be ruffled a little bit. Here, Reeves doesn't say "whoa" even once, and he actually gets to act.

Spader, too, may be on to something with his portrayal of our troubled detective. I still haven't forgiven the guy for Supernova, but he does a good job portraying Campbell's mix of desperation and obsession. The depths of his character are, of course, never explored but for a hero in a movie like this, he's more than serviceable.

The movie has been effectively ripped apart by people who resent even the thought of yet another serial killer movie. If you are one of those, I wouldn't bother with this: The Watcher isn't big on originality or plausibility. (Note to whiners: yes, there is a room filled with candles. Get over it.) But it's effective, it's exciting, it's involving, and by God, it works. That's good enough for me.