31
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 60Village VoiceMelissa AndersonVillage VoiceMelissa AndersonSurveillance is the work of a director who has made significant strides in both storytelling and control of the medium, deftly interweaving a grisly thriller, a sicko "Rashômon," a switcheroo, a psychotic love story, an imaginative paean to children, and an inspired resurrection of Julia Ormond.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterRay BennettThe Hollywood ReporterRay BennettSurveillance will please the B-movie crowd in theaters and on into the ancillaries
- 50New York PostKyle SmithNew York PostKyle SmithEither a ludicrously bad movie or a parody of same. Either way, it's pretty funny.
- 42The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinSurveillance suggests "Jennifer Lynchian" should be used for films that aspire to David’s moody, idiosyncratic genius and fall woefully short.
- 40Film ThreatFilm ThreatIn the end, Surveillance is a puzzle box film that has nothing to offer except the various puzzle pieces. The characters do not stand out, the drama is not compelling, and the screenplay is light on even remotely interesting dialogue.
- 40VarietyVarietyA mildly amusing trifle with one of the genre's dafter plot twists.
- At the end, all is horrifically explained, the body count inflates, yet hardly anything makes sense. In Papa Lynch's films, little is explained, yet because he's so gifted at mining our deepest fears and scariest desires, logic is excused.
- 25San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleThe most enjoyable way to watch Surveillance - "enjoyable," in the relative sense - is to take its awfulness for granted and pay attention to everything Bill Pullman does.
- 20New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanThe performances are dreadful, the direction shoddy and the final twist so idiotic, your mind can’t help but drift toward all the better scripts just waiting, sadly and silently, for the chance wasted here.
- 0The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisIt seems doubtful that Surveillance, a would-be transgression that tries to squeeze dark laughs from the spectacle of human suffering, would be taking up space in theaters if its director were not the daughter of a name filmmaker.