The Watcher

Keanu Reeves may very well be the least convincing, least frightening serial killer in the history of the psycho-thriller genre. Starring here as a supposedly brilliant whack job who dances to headbanger music while strangling lonely young girls with piano wire, he delivers his dialogue as if every line ended with the word "dude" and somebody dubbed it out in post-production. He's followed his nemesis, a haunted FBI agent played by James Spader, from L.A. to Chicago to continue their game of cat and mouse, sending photos of his victims to police 24 hours in advance just to make it interesting (for himself anyway, certainly not for the audience). Directed by Joe Charbanic, a rookie who needed to gestate in music videos a little longer to get over his fascination with visual gimmicks, the movie is rudderless and riddled with continuity problems and logical leaps of faith. Thanks to Reeves' sleeping pill of a psycho, however, The Watcher is mostly just boring. (R. Blackwelder)