starring : keanu reeves , james spader , marisa tomei . when i first saw the previews for joe charbonic's new serial killer thriller , i thought " hey maybe keanu might come out with a somewhat decent movie " . i was somewhat disappointed with " the matrix " though i liked it never-the-less . i went into " the watcher " expecting a somewhat good serial killer flick and walked out with a headache , some confusion and wondering why they wanted to make this movie in the first place . i may be the only one to give this movie this low of a rating , but when you have to sit through a movie , checking your watch every five minutes to see if it is over yet , then it is definately bad to me . james spader plays a detective who has been haunted from memories of his past . a killer has been following him trying to latch on to him , after he did something horrible to his girlfriend . he has a therapist ( marisa tomei ) who is trying to help him through all this trauma he is going through . now the killer ( keanu reeves ) is sending him pictures of the girls he is going to kill , and spader has one day to try to find them before its too late . now all of new york city has to strap down and try to find these girls before the body count becomes bigger . jumbled plot ? bad writing ? sloppy direction ? flat acting ? thats pretty much what all this movie has in it . first of all the plot , if that is what you want me to call it , is so underdeveloped that is painfully confusing and so predictable that by the end of the movie i leaned over to my girlfriend and said " let's go " . i wasn't going to be insulted anymore , but she insisted on staying saying it has to be good somewhere somehow . of course when i left the theatre she thought it was good , while i thought the opposite . i had to wonder why keanu reeves a somewhat talented actor chose such a terrible role as a serial killer , who isn't believable as a serial killer , nor does he fit the serial killer role . james spader has never been someone in hollyweird i have liked , and in " the watcher " he doesn't prove to me he can really be anyone i will like , after starring in the huge flop earlier this year " supernova " he really hasn't had much in the way of a job . his character is completely and utterly underdeveloped and we know nothing about him to like or dislike . marisa tomei is one of the top-billed stars and has around fifteen minutes of total screen time . joe charbonic's direction is not good either , and some of the sloppily made scenes in the movie are so dumb that i started to get a pounding headache . a five year old could have made a better film than this mess . the script is somewhat good , but the dialogue that comes out the actors mouth is stiffly said , and doesn't make much sense sometimes . could " the watcher " have been a good movie ? its highly doubtful and in the end product it clearly shows that hollywood is starting to run out of steam in their movies . with " almost famous " coming out in a few weeks , i'm highly waiting for a really really good movie worth the watch , and worth the wait of a trip to the movie theatre , until then though i tell you to avoid " the watcher " if anything possible , go see " the way of the gun " its not great but at least its better than this . 
