This is an entertaining if rather improbable tale, featuring a premise unabashedly cribbed from Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window", with a twist from Dario Argento's "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage" thrown in for good measure. It starts off with Mike laid up at home with his ankle in a cast (we are given only a vague explanation for this situation, but apparently Nikki, his police colleague, is somehow responsible). His girlfriend comes by when she can, bringing food and good cheer, and he occupies most of his time with looking out his front window at the apartment complex across the street, where all the units have floor-to-ceiling windows spanning the entire length of the front facade, and all the residents inexplicably leave all their blinds all the way open ALL THE TIME (I'm not exaggerating). One wonders, is having exhibitionist tendencies a prerequisite for living in this building? Mike, of course, also has his blinds open, which begs another question: why don't any of the neighbors notice him watching them? - he's plainly visible, sitting right in the window! As I said, improbability reigns here. .
The plot thickens when Mike begins to suspect something fishy is going on with the married couple living in one of the apartments. Armed with a high-powered camera, he starts taking photos, and then enlists Pearl's aid to investigate. She becomes a sort of Grace Kelly to his James Stewart, but unlike in Hitchcock's film where the voyeur protagonist's suspicions are confirmed, here circumstances are not what they look like, and it turns out that Mike's surveillance may not have gone completely unnoticed after all. In a subplot, Pearl has an outside client who talks like a budding psycho, which fortuitously winds up clueing her in to the solution to the mystery. There is a decent amount of effective suspense, and the whole thing is very well and stylishly directed, but a few story points don't make sense and/or are hard to swallow. It's enjoyable enough, though, if you don't take it too seriously. For me it's a 7 out of 10.
The plot thickens when Mike begins to suspect something fishy is going on with the married couple living in one of the apartments. Armed with a high-powered camera, he starts taking photos, and then enlists Pearl's aid to investigate. She becomes a sort of Grace Kelly to his James Stewart, but unlike in Hitchcock's film where the voyeur protagonist's suspicions are confirmed, here circumstances are not what they look like, and it turns out that Mike's surveillance may not have gone completely unnoticed after all. In a subplot, Pearl has an outside client who talks like a budding psycho, which fortuitously winds up clueing her in to the solution to the mystery. There is a decent amount of effective suspense, and the whole thing is very well and stylishly directed, but a few story points don't make sense and/or are hard to swallow. It's enjoyable enough, though, if you don't take it too seriously. For me it's a 7 out of 10.
