Eavesdropper
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: C+
Writer/director Andrew Bakalar is convinced the U.S.
Government is experimenting with brainwave and other related science much
unknown to or even believed by people.
He says he has based his film Eavesdropper (originally titled Patient
14, 2005) on actual interviews. As
usual, the idea of “based on a true story” and especially one that cannot be
confirmed is always something that makes one weary. This work is ambitious and has a good cast, with Bakalar trying
to do this story without clichés.
It involves a woman (Lucy Jenner) who loses her hearing in
a crazy act of gun violence, only to hear voices when she wakes up in a
hospital. However, they turn out not to
be mental illness, but actual thought so of other people around her. The rest of the film is about her efforts to
find out as quickly as possible what is going on and what life odds are at
stake for her and those around her.
John De Lancie (Q from the otherwise overrated Star Trek: The Next
Generation) and the great George Takei (Sulu from the original Star Trek,
who has always been interesting in supporting roles) are doctors involved in
the events, while Costas Mandylor plays the lead, trying to piece things
together in his own way.
For a project that has received little press, it deserves
a little more than it received, especially as compared to so many worse works
in its genre from feature film and TV.
However, though I even believe the director’s stories about this really happening,
this is still crossing into better films we have seen before on the subject
that are classics of the genre. They
include Brian De Palma’s underrated The Fury (1978), David Cronenberg’s Scanners
(1980) and even an episode of the original Twilight Zone episode called Penny
For Your Thoughts in which a man can read other people’s minds when a coin
he tosses lands on its edge.
As a result, what could have been a surprise critical and
commercial success is held back by the inexperience and limits of genre
knowledge of Bakalar, who wants to do a follow up work. Hope he sees those films, because he is not
the first to know the U.S. and all other governments have been studying this
field for years in the interest of military and other uses.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is a bit soft,
though this was shot on film.
Cinematographer Geza Sinkovics avoids some of the clichés of gutted
color and other genre stereotypes, if not creating always-memorable images. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has some surrounds
and is not bad, though not a great mix, it is healthy enough that is should
have home theater playback. Extras
include trailers for this and a few other Freestyle Home Entertainment
releases, a really interesting audio commentary by director Bakalar and a
behind the scenes featurette.
- Nicholas Sheffo
