DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE? // A FILM REVIEW OF “NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH”
BY MATEO MORENO
Often films that try to portray mental illness on screen fall flat. They either over play it, under play it, or come up as a caricature all together. One of things that is so refreshing about NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH is how gentle and caring it treats its character who’s dealing with it. Jack Quaid plays that character, Simon McNally, a young man who is wanting to try and restart his life after spending years institutionalized (wisely they don’t try and diagnose the character nor do they show him in the hospital setting). He sees immediately that the job force does not want to welcome him back and he lives with his sister (Malin Akerman) who is struggling herself just to keep them afloat. Simon also hears things, though he lies and tells his doctor that he’s all better. He hears a voice (and sometimes even sees an imposing figure), telling him that he’s worthless and that he should just give up. He’s trying but the world is not trying with him. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Ed Deerman, an ex-campus security agent who can’t quite let his job go. We find him at the school campus catching a young student stealing. When he confronts the student, the student tells him to go to hell. So Ed sprays his eyes with sanitizer and brings him to the campus security office, which goes about as well as you would think it does. He’s a man who desperately wants to be back doing something important, and feeling important, and doing it in all the wrong ways. He sits at home wallowing, losing money to online poker and drinking his sadness away.
When Simon finds himself walking home one day, he sees something, but he’s not sure if it’s real right away. A man yelling at a young woman and then shoving her into a van and driving off. Even though the voice in his head tells him to forget about it, he knows that this wasn’t a hallucination and has to do something about it. He gets the license plate, but that’s about it. Even the man’s face is distorted in his viewpoint. He first goes to the police, but realizes quickly that they don’t take him seriously. So he goes to the only person he knows that might: his next door neighbor Ed. He doesn’t know that Ed’s lost his job, but he knows he was in law enforcement of some kind. At first Ed slams the door in Simon’s face but eventually decides to help and together, they begin to tackle a mountain of opposition trying to find a girl that’s disappeared without a trace, and nobody seems to actually want to help. What follows isn’t cheesy and doesn’t even sway into an odd-couple comedy. It stays going headfirst into a tightly knit thriller of two oddballs who need each other in their own moments of desperation.
Both Jack Quaid and Jeffrey Dean Morgan do a fantastic job here and their chemistry together crackles. Quaid never overplays his illness and when he struggles with his speech (he calls it “word salad:” unable to get his words out correctly) it never becomes a predatory performance. It’s gentle and kind, showing respect and grace for Simon’s personal struggle and anyone who might relate to it watching from afar. Morgan’s gruff and stubborn demeanor works really well here and he gifts us with a performance that warms you as he warms to Simon. As cheesy as it sounds, this is a movie “they don’t make anymore.” It’s a straight forward thriller with two people who need each other at the exact same time. Malin Akerman doesn’t have as much to do, but she fills her scene with a warm empathy that cements the love she has for her brother. The violence does come and when it does, it’s never glorifying it. It’s ready to make you wince right along with the characters. Neighborhood Watch is a wonderful surprise. Beautifully acted, carefully balanced, respectfully done and sharply directed by Duncan Skiles. It’s a movie that might just sneak into your top picks for the year.
GRADE: A-
WRITTEN BY Sean Farley DIRECTED BY Duncan Skiles STARRING Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jack Quaid, Malin Akerman NOW IN THEATRES AND ON DEMAND