STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Carl (Stephen Graham) operates CCTV in a little centre all alone. Feeling pretty isolated, his only communication is with his friend Lee (Kieran O'Brien) over the cameras, and taking calls home from his troubled teenage daughter. His mundane existence is spiced up a little one night when he has to deal with a woman who is threatening to jump off the top of a building. But this is just the beginning of a terrifying night where he'll have to save Lee from a gang of drug dealers who have a score to settle with a two grand debt.
As the most heavily watched country in Europe, if not the world, CCTV permeates pretty much every facet of existence, and can cover many vast areas. The likes of Carl must exist all over the place, and Graham's portrayal must be typical of the sort that tend to work in jobs like these. It's the perfect setting for a 'real time' thriller, and like the best of them, it's (in this case very) short and sweet. As events are playing out literally as they're happening, it's a result like no other and The Watchman produces fairly hit and miss results.
The mood is impressively dark and grey, with the camera blurred out throughout, which perfectly encapsulates the grim, foreboding world the main character inhabits. There is also a genuine sense of tension and unpredictability about how events will turn out. But it's all also a little untidy, with the woman's suicide bid at the beginning not really tying in with the main story as a whole, as well as an ending that's meant to come off as unexpected and classy, but just leaves you with a sense of confusion and inconclusion.
It's still a generally decent effort, though, with lead star Graham perfectly suited to the role and an impressive air of mystery. ***
