The Watcher Review

So paddling around in Hannibal's backwash, we have this - yet another serial killer movie. But instead of Anthony Hopkins, we get Keanu Reeves, putting his expressionless fish-eyes to good use as cold-blooded killer David Griffin.

While based in LA, FBI Agent Jack Campbell (James Spader) pursued the murderous Griffin but the intensity of the work - the effort to get inside the mind of the killer - brought about a breakdown. Now, after resigning, Campbell has relocated to Chicago for a quiet life of Vietnamese food, sessions with a shrink (Marisa Tomei) and injecting himself with a harsh brew of medicines (a police colleague calls him 'captain barbiturate'). Then his neighbour is killed and Griffin is back on the scene. Obsessed with his relationship with his hunter, Griffin sends Campbell photos of his intended victims, declaring new rules: a day to find the girl. If Campbell fails, Griffin does the terrible deed with a cheese wire.

All this has promise. Serial killer flicks have touched on the relationship between the murderers and the law officers on their case before - Manhunter in particular nails the psychological degradations suffered by an FBI agent as he enters into the mindset of a psychopath.

Spader is solid as the FBI agent haunted and traumatised by his work; the cinematography by Martin Scorsese collaborator Michael Chapman (he shot that classic of urban alienation, Taxi Driver has its atmospheric moments. But the film is let down by the story structure - the daily murder deadlines become repetitive - and director Charbanic's lack of restraint. Pop promo effects are dubious ploys, but OTT car chases and Die Hard-esque explosions are simply out of place in a film premised on intimacy.