“If you see something, say something.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean take a hostage and hold a gun to his head. Or does it? Messages are mixed in director Jeff Renfroe’s and writer Andrew Joiner’s breakthrough effort about the guy next door.
The guy in question is swarthy and mysterious Gabe Hassan, evenly played by Khaled Abol Naga in his American movie debut. Gabe is a graduate student with an apartment full of mysterious looking beakers that smell like, well, almond. You detective buffs can take that one wherever you like but Gabe is just a normal guy. Except for the stacks of cash machine envelopes. Ok, he’s a normal guy except for the stacks of cash machine envelopes. Some people collect string. Is that a crime?
Meanwhile Terry Allen (Peter Krause—HBO “Six Feet Under”) is having a bad day. In fact, he is having a bad life, which is a odd considering his sexy and smart wife Marla (Kari Matchett) is God’s gift to the married man and Terry is a certified public accountant, a profession not overly represented on the welfare roles. The two are saving to buy a dream house but there is a fly in the ointment. Terry’s firm has completed a successful merger and Terry has been downsized. Thrown out like yesterday’s trash.
With time on his hands, he takes on the role of citizen terrorist stopper. He peers out his rear window and sees swarthy Middle Eastern Gabe dumping garbage in the night. In the dumpster out back. In garbage bags. In black garbage bags.
Something is afoot, but no matter how hard we try, it ain’t Hitchcock. The plot bumps and grinds along with grossly exaggerated public servants throwing clichéd corporate platitudes in anguished Terry’s ear while terror stalks the naked city.
The camera fades in and out with fuzzed-up images and switches back and forth from grainy to sharp but doesn’t closely reflect Terry’s decline from the near rationality of the average accountant to the near insanity of the outraged victim of capitalist manipulation. He just needs more time, he pleads, as the inventor of the perpetual motion machine insists it just needs a little push. Hints are dropped, money trails are created but Terry can’t put it together.
Unfortunately, nor can the audience. The hints are there but they are ambiguous and weak. The audience is supposed to have some clues to chew on to build the tension but all we are waiting for is to see how big of an ass Terry will eventually make of himself.
Enter FBI agent Hillary in a sterling performance by Richard Schiff (NBC’s “West Wing”). Schiff plays an insider in the war on terror who is not so much dedicated as, well, bothered. He argues with his wife on the cell phone about picking up their son while listening to Terry’s crackpot descriptions of night time garbage dumps and almond beakers. He is the very embodiment of the overworked and underpaid bureaucrat who is conducting his own war to fly as low as possible under the radar of the war on terrorism. 9-11 was personally directed at him; it is the thorn that stands in the way of his retirement and he is not one bit happy about it. And now there’s this.
The stage is set for a good mystery thriller but we don’t get it. Director Renfroe can’t get Krause beyond road rage into real insanity and Naga acts too much like a grad student.
The best acts are wife Marla and agent Hillary but they can’t carry the whole show. How far can an upset wife and an irritated bureaucrat carry a plot? By the time we get to the twisty ending we are more or less happy that things are simply ending. We have seen too much of Terry, and we are not that sympathetic with out of work accountants anyway.
There is some fun stuff here, but the best that cast and crew have to offer will have to wait until another day.
Civic Duty
Opens: May 4, 2007. MPAA: Rated R for language and some threatening situations.
Your Talkback on this Story