RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Check out the new RT Community
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Box Office
  • | In Theaters
  • | Opening
  • | Upcoming
  • | Best Of
  • | Certified Fresh
  • | Showtimes
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
Movies / On DVD / Surveillance
Surveillance

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Add to List
  • Get this Movie
  • Buy Poster External Icon
Bookmark and Share

Surveillance (2009)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
55 %
Tomatometer
Template ImageTemplate Image

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

Reviews Counted:69

Fresh:38

Rotten:31

Average Rating:5.2/10

Consensus: This dark psycho-thriller from Jennifer Lynch, is violent, sharp and baffling, but not to everyone's taste.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong bloody violence, pervasive language, some drug use and a scene of aberrant sexuality.

Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure

Theatrical Release:Jun 26, 2009 Limited

Synopsis: It's been a hell of a day on the highway. When Federal Officers Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) arrive at Captain Billing's office, they have three sets of... It's been a hell of a day on the highway.

When Federal Officers Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman) arrive at Captain Billing's office, they have three sets of stories to figure out and a string of vicious murders to consider.

One zealot cop, a strung out junkie and an eight year old girl all sit in testimony to the roadside rampage, but as the Feds begin to expose the fragile little details each witness conceals so carefully with a well practiced lie, they soon discover that uncovering ‘the truth’ can come at a very big cost… --© Magnolia Pictures [More]

Starring: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins

Starring: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, Michael Ironside, French Stewart

Director: Jennifer Lynch

Director: Jennifer Lynch
Screenwriter: Kent Harper, Jennifer Lynch
Producer: Kent Harper, Marco Mehlitz, David Michaels
Composer: Todd Bryanton
Studio: Magnolia Pictures

[See More Credits]

  • Trailers
  • Pictures
  • Trailer 1
    >
    The Interview
    >
1 - 2 of 2

See More Movie Trailers & Pictures

Get This Movie

Rent DVD
 
 

Click on the "ADD" button to put this movie into your Netflix queue.

 
 
Buy DVD
 
 
Release:

Aug 18, 2009

[DVD Details]
 
 

DVD Features:

  • Region 1
  • NTSC
  • Widescreen - 2.35

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 2.0 - English
 
 
 
 

Reviews for Surveillance

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
10/22/09
Film Threat

It is staggering to think that a film could be so horrifically nihilistic and so painfully boring at the same time, but Lynch has done it.

Full Review Source: DVD Review | comment Comment
09/30/09
Felix Gonzalez Jr.
Felix Gonzalez Jr.
DVD Review

[S]low-boil sinister, delivering the kind of simmering menace that few films can bother to take the time for these days...

Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | comment Comment
08/18/09
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

The pacing is so slow, you just want to yell out at the screen, "get on with it."

Full Review Source: CNNRadio | comment Comment
08/18/09
Paul Chambers
Paul Chambers
CNNRadio

Jennifer is no David Lynch and her film, while inventive and quirky and at time quite devious, misses the organic alchemy of his films.

Full Review Source: Seanax.com | comment Comment
08/17/09
Sean Axmaker
Sean Axmaker
Seanax.com

Some will be unable to appreciate the movie's savagery on any level. Others will find it affecting and uncompromising, the kind of movie that plunges you into a nightmare and ratchets up the intensity until you're grateful for a moment's respite.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Examiner | comment Comment
08/08/09
Rossiter Drake
Rossiter Drake
San Francisco Examiner

A festival of carnage that's sometimes funny and sometimes waaay over the line.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
07/24/09
Liz Braun
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies

Pullman's striking performance here is undermined by Lynch's overreliance on those same grisly shock tactics, as well as a script that fails to capitalize on a promising premise and then swiftly collapses upon the revelation of a not-so-shocking twist.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
07/24/09
Jason Anderson
Jason Anderson
Toronto Star
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The film's a failure.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
07/24/09
James Adams
James Adams
Globe and Mail
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

In this long-time-coming sophomore film, Lynch exercises powers of her own. She gets repellant, seductive, sympathetic performances from her actors. Ormond and Pullman are frightfully good at teasing intimacy.

Full Review Source: Denver Post | comment Comment
07/17/09
Lisa Kennedy
Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Surveillance is a respectable murder mystery until its contrived 'big reveal' causes it to deflate faster than an inner tube that was just sat on by a morbidly obese person.

Full Review Source: Watertown Daily Times | comment Comment
07/10/09
Adam Tobias
Adam Tobias
Watertown Daily Times

There are a couple of admittedly arresting images on display here and there--not enough to make this film worth watching but enough to make you hope that it doesn't take Lynch another 16 years to make another one.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
07/09/09
Peter Sobczynski
Peter Sobczynski
eFilmCritic.com

Surveillance suggests 'Jennifer Lynchian' should be used for films that aspire to David’s moody, idiosyncratic genius and fall woefully short.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
07/03/09
Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin
AV Club

A wholly engaging partial misfire, if that makes sense -- a spare yet stylish marginal recommendation that connects due to its provocative premise and ruminations on violence, and the considerations that spawns.

Full Review Source: Shared Darkness | comment Comment
07/03/09
Brent Simon
Brent Simon
Shared Darkness

Its mad killers may wear masks. But the real and cheap disguise here is the film's own -- an exploitation shocker trying to pass itself off as art.

Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | comment 1 Comment
07/03/09
Stephen Whitty
Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Surveillance is a crafty crime film with an involving setup and a ridiculous payoff, but there's enough here to make it worth a viewing at least on DVD or cable.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
07/03/09
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

The most enjoyable way to watch Surveillance -- 'enjoyable' in the relative sense -- is to take its awfulness for granted and pay attention to everything Bill Pullman does.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
07/03/09
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A grubby, disturbing serial-killer mystery, a kind of blood-simple Rashomon.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
07/03/09
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Falls somewhere in between the somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone of Wild at Heart and the more au courant trend toward savage, nihilistic deranged-killer movies.

Full Review Source: Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus | comment Comment
07/01/09
Bryant Frazer
Bryant Frazer
Bryant Frazer's Deep Focus

Has solid acting, but offers very little in terms of suspense, intelligence and intrigue. It completely falls apart into an inane, contrived and perverse mess that leaves you with a bad aftertaste.

Full Review Source: NYC Movie Guru | comment Comment
06/28/09
Avi Offer
Avi Offer
NYC Movie Guru
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 >> >|
all

Latest News for Surveillance

August 17, 2009: RT on DVD: From Hannah Montana's Hoedown to Last House on the Left
This week, get your Miley Cyrus fix with Hannah Montana's feature-length trip to the big screen (Hannah Montana The Movie), or do a complete 180-degree turn with the latest... More...

March 03, 2009: Five Favourite Films with Bill Pullman
Few can forget Bill Pullman's rousing speech as the US president in Independence Day, but it's only one of a long string of vast and diverse roles that have seen him cast as... More...

See All

More DVDs

Close
Top Rentals
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
45% 45% Ice Age: Dawn of the D…
19% 19% Transformers: Revenge …
55% 55% Orphan
43% 43% The Proposal
26% 26% Land of the Lost

More Rentals…

New On DVD This Week
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
98% 98% Up
88% 88% Ballast
67% 67% The Merry Gentleman

More New Releases…

See All

RT On Current TV

What’s Hot On RT

60+ New Moon pics

60+ New Moon pics

You want Twilight images? We got 'em!

New Clips!

New Clips!

Explore The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus!

2012

2012

Major havoc in these new clips!

Salt trailer

Salt trailer

Angelina Jolie! Espionage! Check it out!

Other News

Close
  • Top Stories
  • Popular
  • Interviews
 
 

Comments

 
 
Top Stories
Headlines Comments
  
  • Can Avatar Make Money? Source: New York Times
49
  • Robert Pattinson Says Breaking Dawn Could Roll in Fall 2010 Source: Collider.com
12
  • Joe Johnston Talks The Wolfman Source: Ain't It Cool News
4
  • Jason Schwartzman Talks Scott Pilgrim Source: Collider.com
0
  • Weekly Ketchup: Abrams eyes Micronauts, Aykroyd as Yogi Bear
96
  • J.J. Abrams Producing Micronauts Movie? Source: Wall Street Journal
11
  • Peter Murphy Filming Twilight Saga: Eclipse Cameo Source: MTV
18
  • David Goyer Promises "Existential" Ghost Rider Sequel Source: MTV
164
  • Emmerich Plans 2012: The TV Series Source: Entertainment Weekly
21
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview
42
Popular
Headlines Comments
  
  • Total Recall: George Clooney's Best Movies
91
  • RT on DVD: G.I. Joe, Rocky, and Christmas Classics
75
  • Critics Consensus: A Christmas Carol Dazzles But Disappoints
43
  • Ho-ho-horror! 10 Scary Christmas Movies
36
  • Weekly Ketchup: Abrams eyes Micronauts, Aykroyd as Yogi Bear
32
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: Christmas Carol Tops, Precious Rocks
29
  • Friday Harvest: Prince of Persia, The Road, and more!
24
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview
14
Interviews
Headlines Comments
  
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview
14
  • Terry Gilliam Talks Doctor Parnassus
15
  • Wes Anderson Talks Fantastic Mr. Fox - RT Interview
8
  • Wolverine Creator Len Wein Talks About the Film
28
  • Gavin Hood Talks Wolverine; Possible Sequel
28
  • Duncan Jones talks Moon, Sam Rockwell, and Mute
14
  • Emma Stone talks Zombieland - RT Interview
40
  • Michael Moore: The RT Interview
139
  • Andrea Arnold talks Fish Tank - RT Interview
4
  • Neill Blomkamp talks District 9 - RT Interview
51
 
 

Sponsored Links

Around The Network

  • Surveillance at Rotten Tomatoes
  • Surveillance at IGN

Fresh Links

Featured
Worst Movie Biopics
Worst Movie Biopics External Link

Moviefone brings us 9 failed attempts at biographical films.

Top Cameron Crowe Moments
Top Cameron Crowe Moments External Link

TIME reminisces on the 10 most iconic moments from the films of Cameron Crowe.

November Films
November Films External Link

BuzzSugar wants to know which movies coming out this month you're most looking forward to.

The New Cult Canon
The New Cult Canon External Link

The AV Club takes a look back at Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Games| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo

IGN.com | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Planets | Vaults | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | Direct2Drive | Green Pixels


By continuing past this page, and by the continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2009, IGN Entertainment, Inc. About IGN | Support | Advertise | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! IGN RSS Feeds
IGN's enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.