Watching the Detectives

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre comedy Starring Cillian Murphy, Lucy Liu Directed by Paul Soter Publisher Genius Entertainment

The 2007 romantic comedy Watching the Detectives releases in stores on August 12. This is a unique film, full of quirks and humor and clever characters. Upon careful inspection, the story has no plot at all to speak of—it is truly nothing more than the story of a guy who owns a video store and meets an unusual girl—and yet that fault can be easily shrugged off in favor of the films creative and genuinely fun presentation. The viewer feels inclined to go out and “be crazy” just like the characters in the film, with reckless excitability. 

The actors, Cillian Murphy and Lucy Liu, are brilliant, and in this film, audiences get to see them acting a little bit less like their usual characters. Lucy Liu is magnificently insane in this film, her character Violet being the kind of girl no one has ever met in “real life”: a quirky, adventure-seeker who is allergic to boredom and, apparently, to telling the truth. Somehow she is incredibly loveable anyway. Although Liu usually plays characters who are a little hyperactive, this one is probably the most intense she has played yet.
Cillian Murphy’s character, a nerdy guy named Neil who owns a vintage detective film video store, is several steps down from his traditional frightening villain role and proves himself to be quite a good “romantic comedy” guy, with a charming personality, sarcastic humor, and even some well-played emotions. This role is a far cry from Murphy’s other most recent roles in Batman Begins and Red Eye, but he does a good job portraying the ordinary guy instead of the murder-crazed villain for a change. He should get more roles of this kind occasionally.

There are discrepancies in the film itself that cannot be ignored. While the cinematography is good and some of the humorous moments turn out to be downright hilarious, the title of the film has almost nothing to do with the film itself except secondarily in a couple of ways. The film really is more about the romance of the two main characters than any actual specific adventure at all.

For a film that had an apparently short theater run on 2007, there are very limited bonus features on the disk and non are fan-geared. The only feature included with this film is its theatrical trailer. The film is not rated, but there is minimal nudity (just a cameo appearance of Cillian Murphy’s behind) and minimal sex (one soft scene) and even minimal swearing (a couple of bad words, but no swearing rants). Overall, the film is loveable and entertaining, if a little forgettable.