Director Jennifer Lynch has clearly inherited her father David’s ability to shock.
Surveillance (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:69
Fresh:38
Rotten:31
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: This dark psycho-thriller from Jennifer Lynch, is violent, sharp and baffling, but not to everyone's taste.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis:
It's been a hell of a day on the highway.
When Federal Officers Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) arrive at Captain Billing's office, they have three sets of...
It's been a hell of a day on the highway.
When Federal Officers Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) arrive at Captain Billing's office, they have three sets of stories to figure out and a string of vicious murders to consider.
One zealot cop, a strung out junkie and an eight year old girl all sit in testimony to the roadside rampage, but as the Feds begin to expose the fragile little details each witness conceals so carefully with a well practiced lie, they soon discover that uncovering ‘the truth’ can come at a very big cost… --© Magnolia Pictures
Starring: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins
Starring: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, Michael Ironside, French Stewart
Director: Jennifer Lynch
Director: Jennifer Lynch
Screenwriter: Kent Harper, Jennifer Lynch
Producer: Kent Harper, Marco Mehlitz, David Michaels
Composer: Todd Bryanton
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Reviews for Surveillance
Jennifer Lynch, daughter of cinema's most celebrated weirdo, David Lynch, takes what could have been a straight-up slasher film and transforms it into a freak-fest that wouldn't look out of place on a double-bill with Lynch Snr's Lost Highway.
Two-thirds of Surveillance is taut and absorbing, yet the cheap third act twist feels tacked on from a lesser talent, say one whose last name rhymes with 'Pshyamalan.'
It's a fiendish little thriller, and undeniably sick, but you won't forget it in a hurry.
Although her tale involves wild-at-heart lovers racing down a lost highway, Lynch has created a whole different shade of black from anything made by her father.
When Surveillance is good, it’s a gory, pleasurable ride. When it’s not -- it’s just gory. But more often than not, it delivers on the camp.
A wholly engaging partial misfire, if that makes sense -- a spare yet stylish marginal recommendation that connects due to its provocative premise and ruminations on violence, and the considerations that spawns.
Doesn't exactly leap off the screen as a diamond example of procedural crime busting cinema, but taken as the next professional step for Lynch, it's an efficient mood piece, setting out to unnerve and baffle, and achieving most of its goals.
Surveillance isn't rewriting history, but it's a solid, entertaining third draft.
It’s a bleak piece of Americana with a twisted smile on its face. Sick, if you like, but there’s a real film-maker here and I’ve never seen Ormond and Pullman so effectively not be their usual screen selves.
Lynch has clearly learned from her father's knack for crafting eerily unsettling movies, although her instincts seem to favor solid genre thrills.
Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David Lynch, proves to be a chip off the old block in this tense, delightfully over-the-top police thriller.
Véritable bombe à retardement, Surveillance est surtout un thriller qui ose prendre son temps, faisant évoluer chaque parcelle de sa production à la même vitesse...
Surveillance is a crafty crime film with an involving setup and a ridiculous payoff, but there's enough here to make it worth a viewing at least on DVD or cable.
Jennifer Lynch's nasty little crime procedural is not much more than an exercise, but it's a vivid, smartly executed and refreshingly eccentric one.
Twisted with black comedy, off-kilter performances, unsettling sound design and jolts of violence, Jennifer Lynch’s eminently Lynchian psycho-thriller is far better than its fairly predictable final rug-pull.
The picture is twisted and disturbing and funny. Director Jennifer Lynch has pushed the material to the wall -- she has a gift for violence and perversity, and she never pulls back.
Ether a ludicrously bad movie or a parody of same. Either way, it's pretty funny.
In this long-time-coming sophomore film, Lynch exercises powers of her own. She gets repellant, seductive, sympathetic performances from her actors. Ormond and Pullman are frightfully good at teasing intimacy.
A taut, nihilistic, exercise in heartland desolation, and unlike most films whose success is predicated on an 11th-hour twist, it plays 100% fair: The truth is out there from the beginning, if you're willing to see it.
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