The Watcher (2000)

A small 2000 serial-killer thriller whose only real claim to fame is that James Spader is terrifying in it. The film is not a procedural, not a slasher, not a mystery in the Agatha Christie sense. It is a cat-and-mouse study between a retired FBI profiler (Spader) and an affluent suburban serial killer (Keanu Reeves, in the most un-Reeves performance of his career) who leaves messages in lipstick on the windows of his victims. The film is two hours of watching one man be calm, then the other man be calm, then the camera moving between them.

What the film does

Marisa Tomei plays the woman who just moved into the house the killer is watching. She is moving in with her eight-year-old daughter and her new husband. The killer has been watching the house for months before they arrive. The FBI sends Spader to catch him. Spader is himself a subject of FBI suspicion (the script never quite explains why), so the case is also a probationary test. He is forbidden to engage the killer, which is the whole point of the film, because the killer wants nothing more than to be engaged.

The dichotomy the film is built around is exactly what you described. Spader is the cold calm. He sits in his car, watches the house, drinks coffee from a thermos. Reeves is the warm calm. He sits in his own house across the street, watches the house, also drinks. The film cross-cuts between them with the patience of a chess match. Neither man ever raises his voice. Most of the violence happens off-screen and is implied through aftermath. The suspense comes from how still both men are, and from the small ways their stillness differs.

Why it’s in the canon

Great serial-killer suspense with the dichotomy of calm and suspense baked into every shot. The criteria blend is 1+3, I loved it and I want to remember it. It is the kind of film that does almost nothing on screen and works entirely because the two leads know exactly how quietly to play their parts. Spader, in particular, is doing the version of himself that would later turn into The Blacklist’s Reddington but without any of the charm, just the watchfulness.

What stays with me

The window shots. The killer’s signature is leaving messages in red lipstick on the inside of his victims’ windows, photographed from the outside. The film lingers on these as Spader sees them, and the camera work makes you feel like you are seeing them through binoculars, or through a sniper scope, or through the killer’s own eyes. There are roughly six of these moments and each one is its own self-contained suspense scene. They are the film’s main verb.

On hand

Yes, DVD + digital. The DVD is the Universal release. The digital is the same transfer. If you only know Spader from Sex, Lies, and Videotape (the early version of his unsettling calm) or from The Blacklist (the later, charming version), this film is the bridge between them. It is also the only Keanu Reeves performance where he plays someone genuinely cold, and the choice to cast him against type is the film’s most interesting directorial decision.

A note on the title

There is a 2022 horror film with the same name, directed by Chloe Okuno. Different film. This entry is the 2000 Charbanic film.