The Watcher is not good. Forgive the unoriginality of that opening sentence, but it’s far more original than the film itself.
Acting druggy as ever, Keanu Reeves is a serial killer who taunts cop James Spader (whose lazy eye I’d never noticed) by sending him photographs of his next victim, giving Spader and crew 24 hours to try and locate the intended murderee in time. Hardly figuring in to the instantly forgettable plot is Marisa Tomei, looking uncharacteristically puffy and tired, as Spader’s psychiatrist.
You see, Spader is haunted by a particular murder committed by Reeves in the past that he was unable to stop. This has caused him to become some sort of drug addict, resulting in one of the film’s many clichés — namely, that swallowing pills is really hard and requires one to throw his neck back to a perfect right angle and grimace uncomfortably as if the capsules were laden with porcupine quills.
The Watcher also dredges up the equally tired and unrealistic scenes of phone calls that end without the person saying “Bye” or any farewell of the kind; car chases where the one automobile that whips into traffic never gets hit, but causes several crashes; and tape recorders that always rewind to the exact point needed, and never in the middle of a sentence. Slick and glitzy, yet still workmanlike, The Watcher smacks of a director who got his start in music videos, and sure enough, Joe Charbanic did. Thus, you get hilarious, slow-mo scenes of Reeves dancing while holding a gun, not to mention enough photography flashes to cause seizures. —Rod Lott
The Watcher only exists because of Boxing Helena. I believe the story is that Reeves promised to be in the movie during an encounter with the director on the set of another film, which was enough to get the money required to produce it. But when Reeves read the actual script he tried to bail, but stayed on because he didn’t want to get hit by the same lawsuit that bankrupted Kim Basinger.