Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
An FBI agent tracks a serial killer with the help of three of his would-be victims - all of whom have wildly different stories to tell.
Jennifer Lynch's Surveillance is a grim, twisty neo-noir thriller that delivers a genuinely shocking and memorable ending that recontextualizes much of what came before — its strongest asset. The plot is competently structured around unreliable witness testimonies, keeping tension reasonably high, though it borrows heavily from post-Tarantino fragmented narrative crime thrillers. Acting is serviceable with Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman bringing credibility, but supporting performances are uneven. Cinematography is functional and appropriately bleak for the rural setting without being particularly distinctive. Novelty is moderate — the film has a distinctive mean-spirited tone and a daughter-of-Lynch sensibility, but its core mechanics are familiar enough to limit its originality score.