Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“I know who you are. You’re the batshit loon that lives next door”
Director Duncan Skiles and writer Sean Farley deliver an offbeat thriller in ‘Neighborhood Watch’, where two wacky neighbors team up to solve a case that might not even be real.
Jack Quaid (‘The Boys’, ‘Novocaine’, ‘Heads of States’) plays protagonist Simon McNally, a young man fresh out of a mental health center, who witnesses a woman being beaten and kidnapped, but the cops don’t believe him. So he turns to neighbor Ed Deerman (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a former security guard, for help. To his surprise, the old man agrees, though it seems to be more out of boredom than faith in Simon’s account.
It’s an oddly entertaining mismatched duo: Ed, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is a smug, overconfident curmudgeon, while Jack Quaid’s Simon stumbles through life haunted by cruel voices in his head. There’s a bit of The show cleverly makes viewers as doubtful as the cops: was there really a crime, or just Simon’s imagination?
An ironical parallel sub-plot in ‘Neighborhood Watch’ shows Detective Glover (Cecile Cubiló) choosing to investigate what Simon is up to, instead of taking his ‘missing girl’ complaint seriously. The film thus takes a jab at the way authorities dismiss people with troubled pasts. Simon’s credibility is constantly questioned, not just because of his shaky mental health and time in an institution, but also because of his criminal record. The cops barely entertain his pleas, writing him off as unstable or unreliable, which makes his fight to be believed just as gripping as the mystery itself.
Malin Akerman plays Deedee McNally, Simon’s older sister, studying to be a nurse and looking after her brother, but their relationship is clearly strained, owing to traumatic childhood experiences. Though the sibling interactions are brief, they provide crucial insights to why Simon is the way he is.
Thankfully, ‘Neighborhood Watch’ doesn’t end on an open-ended cliffhanger. By the finale, we get concrete answers as Ed and Simon slip into private-detective mode, chasing down the case through a crucial lead: Simon remembers the license plate of the van the girl was allegedly kidnapped in. Whether it’s bluffing as cops or getting smacked around by local goons, Simon and Ed land themselves in plenty of trouble while poking around for clues.
With a tight 90 minute runtime, ‘Neighborhood Watch’ moves at a crisp pace, borrowing from the familiar buddy-comedy setup but twisting it into something darker and moodier, with a touch of subtle humor. Simon constantly teeters on the edge of a breakdown, spouting frantic word salads, while Ed gradually learns to temper his grumpiness with a surprising tolerance for the young man’s chaos.
Rating: 7.5 on 10. ‘Neighborhood Watch’ is on Prime Video.
Read Next: The Ba***ds of Bollywood Series Review (Audio Version Below)