Tonight, the Cap'n decided to watch Surveillance, the new / second film from Jennifer Lynch of Boxing Helena fame. It's been sixteen years between her first and second movie (even if Surveillance has a 2007 copyright), but I'd say there's a marked improvement between the two.
It's not that Boxing Helena wasn't interesting, but at the time I dismissed it a bit as "Lynch-lite." That is an unfortunate side effect of being related to another director; in this case, the daughter of David Lynch, who casts a pretty big shadow. The good news is that Surveillance is a Jennifer Lynch movie, and even though the old man is credited with executive producing the film and recorded a song for the end, the shadow isn't looming large this time.
With a mind to keep this short, I'm going to skimp on the details of the film. I'll say that Surveillance is about two murderers, two FBI agents, three witnesses, and a series of intersecting flashbacks. The film is based on a combination of withheld information and contradictions between what is said and what is seen. Astute viewers will accordingly be able to guess there's some kind of "twist" in the film, and if Surveillance has a downside it's that said "twist" won't be too shocking, even if you aren't paying careful attention.
On the other hand, Lynch sets the pieces of the puzzle up in an interesting way, and holds back just enough to keep the audience unable to put all of the pieces together. I was happy to see the alternate ending wasn't used, because the one in the finished film is more... appropriate, shall we say.
Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond are both doing great work as the agents called in to sort out the chain of murders, and there are surprisingly serious turns from Cheri Oteri and French Stewart. Michael Ironside doesn't get much to do, but he's pretty good and Pell James and Ryan Simpkins are impressive as another critical pair of characters.
Overall, I'm going to recommend this to fans of both Lynches, with the caveat that you shouldn't expect anything wild or out of left field. This is a reasonably straight forward murder mystery with a decent twist that has some great cinematography and very good acting. If you were curious about seeing Surveillance, I'd say go ahead and watch it, but if you're just coming out of watching INLAND EMPIRE for the seventh time straight, you might want to look elsewhere for now.
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