PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
Who is The Eye? We learn from the opening scene that he's some kind of stealthy spy with enough hi-tech gadgetry to make Q drive off the road. He totes a cool digital camera that can not only capture sound and images from great distances, but also serves as a rifle. As the film opens, The Eye snaps some photographs of a guy putting the stones to the company floozy in his office located across the street. Before the guy can even pull his pants up, The Eye has sent the pictures to every computer and fax machine in his workplace.
After this initial episode, we learn a little more about The Eye. He checks in with his headquarters via a bossy liaison named Hilary (k.d. lang), who fills in a few more blanks – The Eye is a loner that prefers video conferencing to actual human contact. Presumably he's like this because of some tragedy that happened to his wife and daughter, the latter of whom haunts The Eye's days and nights. Hilary tells him that his next assignment is to tail the boss' son, who is pilfering funds from his trust fund.
As The Eye begins to work the case, he becomes infatuated with a mysterious woman (Ashley Judd, Double Jeopardy) and abandons his work to peep at her every move. He's drawn further into her peculiar world after witnessing her murder a gentleman caller and washing the blood off of her naked body in the middle of a rainstorm. Instead of making him back off, The Eye proceeds to follow her around the country and watch as she bumps other men off. He trails her to Pittsburgh, New York, San Francisco and all points boring and, at one point, stops to fondle the wall of his hotel room bath while the mystery girl washes up on the other side (yes, you get to see both of her Judds and the crack of her Ashley). And just when it seems like things can't get any dumber, in marches Jason Priestley, who does a bottle-blond impression of James Gandolfini in True Romance.
Oh, yeah, The Eye is played by Ewan McGregor (Phantom Menace), who successfully makes his character seem creepy, tortured and sleep-deprived in each scene. It's the second McGregor film in a row where the Scotsman doesn't show `little Ewan,' and, ironically, these are his only two films that have opened number one at the box office. Moral: Keep it in your pants. It's too bad he doesn't have a better story to show off his talent (I mean big Ewan).
The script was written by Aussie director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert), who adapted it from Marc Behm's novel of the same name. And, brother, it's a mess. You never get a clear idea of what The Eye is trying to accomplish by stalking this girl. Is he trying to be her guardian angel? Is he trying to catch her? Is he focusing his attention on her to make up for not paying enough attention to his kid? Or is he just a dirty Peeping Tom? Don't ask me – I have no idea. In the book, The Eye actually follows his dream girl for ten years. Here, it seems like two weeks. Tops.
There are some pretty cool things in the film. There are decent visuals, especially when Elliott uses snow domes to blend into reality. The score (Marius de Vries, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet) is moody and atmospheric, and the cinematography (Guy Dufaux, Jesus of Montreal) is pleasantly bleak. There are some things that don't work, either, like the fact that The Eye tries to remain inconspicuous in public while wearing a bright red coat. But the main problem is with the story, which seems oddly foreign. Eye was filmed in Quebec with a French-Canadian crew and has actually already been made into a film – 1993's Mortelle randonnée (Deadly Run), with Michel Serrault and Isabelle Adjani.
1:47 - R for some strong violence, nudity, adult situations, language and brief drug content
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews