Surveillance

 

The only way was up for Jennifer (daughter of David) Lynch, who found herself reviled as the epitome of pampered Hollywood nepotism when she foisted Boxing Helena on a horrified public back in 1993.

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Now she is back with Surveillance, a film that is not only executive-produced by her father but which also showcases a lot of his trademark tics and tropes. If nothing else, it makes for a brazenly unapologetic comeback. Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond star as the caffeinated FBI agents tracking serial killers in a dust-blown prairie town, rounding up the witnesses and picking over their testimonies. But this is a world of smoke and mirrors where the eye-witness accounts don't quite add up. Nobody, we suspect, is quite on the level: not the boorish local cops, nor the road-tripping stoners, and perhaps not even Lynch herself, who has concocted a violent B-movie bamboozler that, while fun for a spell, is finally unconvincing. In labouring to keep a lid on its twist ending, the film first overheats and then blows a gasket. The characters are left stranded, with nothing to drink but the coffee; nothing to chew but the scenery.

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