Kianue Reeves challenged to play the role of serial killer, who watches the targeted victim and kills her. As a person, who is in the same business, it was very interesting to watch this movie.

I am going to write a movie review once a month from this month. The first one is "The Watcher". Kianue Reeves, who I have been paying attention ever since he became famous through "My Private Idaho", plays the main character of this movie. He plays, Griffin, the serial killer, who targets lonely women; watch the target carefully; and kill his target without leaving any evidence. This is his first one to play a bad guy. I understand why he wanted to play this role because he could receive totally different reviews as an actor.

Initially, I was skeptical about his ability to play the role because he played so many nice guy and heroic roles in the past. Yet, he successfully played the mysterious serial killer. If Brad Pitt or Leonard De Caprio, who do not have any sense of darkness, had played this role, it wouldn't have worked. He really fits to the role. I think that not everyone can play a bad guy.

Actually, this movie is not about the killer. It is the story about psychological struggle of a detective who chases the case. The detective ended up psychologically being closed in when he was chasing the killer. I was putting more of my emotion into Campbell, the FBI detective played by James Spaider because I played somewhat similar role before. Campbell's lover was killed while he was chasing Griffin in New York. Campbell was mentally hurt and came to Chicago in order to escape from Griffin. But, now, Griffin is chasing Campbell. They are confronting each other again. James Spaider played a very capable detective, who has some weaknesses, very well. I could feel the character of detective very much.

The main feature of this movie was, of course, the psychological description of them. Griffin thinks Campbell is the only one person who understands him. He keeps killing to get Campbell's attention. Griffin has a kind of childish desire to play more with Campbell. He got very angry when Campbell said, "You are just a part of my job." It often happens between man and woman that they will attracted to each other more when they share the same tension. In case of Griffin, it is more than that. I had an impression that Griffin had a real strong desire to monopolize Campbell.

Because they worked on the details of the movie, it became very real. For instance, the investigation method of FBI was very convincing. They enlarged the picture sent by the killer to a large panel to find a clue. I looked at it thinking that the real FBI may be doing the same thing. The construction of the movie was very original which created very fine psychological relationships. Especially, the opening of the movie, which used many stop-motions, was really cool.

Joe Sharpanic, the director, came from MTV. This is quite understandable. The way he used the music on this movie was like a music video, which does not have many links between the music and the picture. It was interesting.

Over all, including the story, it is a very orthodox movie. Even the costumes, the bad guy wears a black lather jacket, and the detective wears a suit. It is easy to understand. (laughing) It is so easy to understand that we can enjoy the details such as the minds of the characters and the investigation methods. This is that kind of movie.

More than anything else, Kianue Reeves is one to watch. He got out of the image of an idle with a pretty face and moved to have more mature image. It was interesting to watch the movie which his acting range was expanded.