Civic Duty

Civic Duty is a dark, contemplative thriller that loosely adapts the Rear Window concept into a post-9/11 paranoia parable. Peter Krause stars as Terry Allen, an out of work C.P.A. who begins to notice some strange behavior from the “Middle Eastern guy” who lives downstairs. His free time spent waiting for calls from potential employers gives him ample opportunity to become a full on voyeur, and his gradual transformation from average joe to self-appointed terrorist hunter is a twisted psychological evolution that’s fascinating to watch.

I won’t go in to any sort of extensive detail about what transpires or who is the justified party here. I think it’s fairly vital that each viewer draw his or her own conclusions and experience the narrative without any foreknowledge of what’s to come. In fact, the film is generally ambiguous and murky in its explanations. It allows perception to play a key role, and stresses how something harmless can be seen as dangerous and vice versa. Terry sees potential terrorism in everything his neighbor does, but his wife (Kari Matchett) simply rationalizes it all away. It really becomes a question of how each viewer and each character perceives things and less about what the actual truth might be.

The film is weakened a bit by a jumpy, jittery, rapid fire photography style, but benefited by its low key digital look when the camera finally stays still. The reason it really works is that despite the intensity of the material and the weight of its objectives, you still feel like these characters are real somehow. There’s such great attention to detail and real care taken in writing lines that on the surface portray casual remarks but beneath speak volumes about a character’s true personality. Early scenes seem foreboding in retrospect where they had once just seemed like irrelevant exposition. It’s a great film with rich performances all around. Krause and Matchett are both extraordinary as are Richard Schiff as a skeptical FBI agent and Khaled Abol Naga making his American film debut as the neighbor in question.

This really is a film about contemporary culture as a whole. It of course deals with the constant threat of terror, but also less directly with the conundrum of persistent media bombardment in American lives, the dehumanization of even the most seemingly simple activities, and the general confounding pressures of the modern age, all of which play a role in shaping the mind of Terry Allen. There’s a lot to process here, and it’s bound to linger with you long after the final frame.

Grade: A-