This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Letting the snake guard the frog pond
Plot Overview
The camera lingers on establishing shots
of small town Americana. There's a proliferation of American flags,
and one Confederate, in a town with enough industry to rate train
tracks but enough environmentalism to accommodate parks.
Big city lights are far away and the county line close enough to bike
to. The crime rate is low, and the citizens let their children play
unsupervised on the square. White bread USA at its visually most appealing: no
blacks—save for one Oreo kid sandwiched in—and no
crime (not recently anyway.) Until now. The whole close-knit
community is shocked when one Justin Whitter (Riley Caya,) age 10,
is abducted from an isolated bicycle trail.
His disappearance and an earlier one from in town fit the MO of a convicted pedophile now behind bars and is figured for a copycat crime. They assign the case to a black officer Det. Spitzky (Gregory Alan Williams) who had worked the other one long ago. His now retired partner is replaced as lead by White Detective Greg Harper (Jon Tenney) who'd been a lackluster beat cop back then. There isn't any tension in this arrangement as everyone knows his place in this southern coastal town.
The tension is in Greg Harper's
home life. His wife Jackie (Helen Hunt) is a remnant flower child.
She drinks tea from a sunflower cup, pops prescription pills,
and practices counseling not wearing any makeup though her looks have
long since faded. She was recently exposed for a renewed affair with
a guy from her free love days, whence the family tension. Greg feels
inadequate as a man figuring Jackie wouldn't have married him if he
hadn't knocked her up. Her rich father hated him yet gave them a choice
home as a wedding present, which they then filled with kitsch. His
professional advancement was from his father-in-law's pull not from
his detecting acumen—it's his black partner who picks up on
the clues, not he. He's been sleeping on the couch, waking up tired,
and acting the stumblebum around the house. Their disappointed
kid Connor (Judah Lewis) has been acting out.
Ideology
In line with the title, “I See
You,” a peripatetic homebody
Mindy (Libe Barer) is making a “documentary” of small
town American life, letting her “cameraman” Alec
(Owen Teague) pick the latest location (“I know how to pick
'em, eh?”) It turns out to be this nice house with the messed
up residents. After having endured the drama so far, we go back over
it again, but this time with the added documentary lens. The same
story develops unexpected nuances when Alec embellishes it with fake
news. Eventually, Greg confronts the camera guy warning him, “You
have any idea what's coming for you?” It's pretty much not a
good idea to mess around with peoples' lives, especially when one
of them is a cop. As wise king Solomon put it, (Prov. 26:17) “He that passeth by,
and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh
a dog by the ears.”
Production Values
“” (2019) was directed by Adam Randall. It was written by Devon Graye. It stars Helen Hunt, Jon Tenney, and Judah Lewis. Helen Hunt is fine though her role isn't very expansive. Judah Lewis as her son does fine but he's mostly in the background. Jon Tenney as Hunt's detective husband is first rate. Libe Barer hopping in as Mindy in the second half did very well. Gregory Alan Williams as Spitz was careful not to upstage anyone.
MPAA rated it R for violence and language. It was filmed on location in appropriately named Lakewood, Ohio, USA with some river footage shot in downtown Chagrin Falls, Ohio. The music evoked an unsettling sense of menace, especially when a low bass beat seemed to signal doom. The acting was decent, the photography well crafted and the story cleverly written. The editing in places could have been better.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
If you're looking for a boilerplate detective mystery where the knowing cop unravels a sticky mystery, you're likely to be disappointed with a drama that seems to go nowhere. If, however, you're into Hitchcockian suspense that can catch a body off guard, this one will be right up your alley. It had restricted showing in theaters but deserved better.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
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