george.schmidt 21 EYES (2003) **1/2 Rebecca Mader, Chance Kelly, Nestor Serrano, (voices of : Fisher Stevens, Michael Buscemi, Shae D'Lynn) Gimmicky yet affective heist drama with a unique spin: telling the crime thu the eyes of 2 off-screen police detectives attempting to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of a diamond heist where an inside job looks to be the m.o. A few clever twists and turns and the back and forth banter by world-wearily sarcastic Stevens and Buscemi boosts the otherwise predictable yet compelling screenplay by Sean Murphy and director Lee Bonner suggests a blend of Bogart flicks with a dash of Tarantino wisdom of honor among thieves.

qonder As a native of Baltimore, I had to go see a film which was made locally. One of the local second run theaters was featuring this film. I went in not really knowing what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised. Note, if you plan to see the film, make sure to get to the showing ahead of time, as the film gets off with a bang right from the start.What I enjoyed about this film's mystery, was the approach of solving the crime from watching the security tapes. I couldn't say if there were 21 cameras involved, but certainly we see the crime go down from every imaginable angle. As two detectives are watching the tapes, things start off kind of slow, but as the night wears on, the intensity surrounding the viewing of the tapes builds and builds. In the audience, I was finding myself trying to figure things out right along with them.I can't finish this commentary without mentioning the humor. Most of the joke lines went by before I realized they were funny. Then when it struck me, the film had already moved on and I had to focus back to the plot. It may be worth watching again, just to make sure I catch all the humor.

hausrathman Two detectives, heard but never seen, assigned to watch a stack of surveillance tapes from a failed jewel robbery discover that a more insidious crime in this ground-breaking independent thriller directed by Lee Bonner. Because of its limited perspective -- we only see the images the two detectives themselves are watching -- 'Replay' began like a bold cinematic stunt, but the mystery quickly hooked me. Soon, I felt as much a participant in the mystery as Fisher Stevens and Michael Buscemi, who played the two detectives. Fortunately, for those in the audience with me, I refrained from offering my advice aloud to the detectives. I really enjoyed this movie. It's great to see someone try something new and succeed.

openeyes Two detectives assigned to watch twenty-one security camera tapes of a violent but seemingly open-and-shut jewel heist discover that seeing isn't necessarily believing in this fresh and unique film recently placed in evidence at the DC Independent Film Festival. Sounds like an open-and-shut movie? Not so. This movie has a hook: We never see the detectives. We only hear their running commentary as we watch the tapes along with them. Everything we see is as new to them as it is to us which gives the audience a chance to figure out the crime before them."Replay" is a movie where perspective is everything, and the film makers boldly maintain that perspective even if it means letting the movie screen go completely blue, like a home VCR, while the detectives change tapes. They replay some tapes. They slow things down. They speed things up. They sometimes pause a frame to talk about what they are seeing or make a phone call. In a sense, this is the very antithesis of a "motion picture." Yet it works, and not just in some theoretical realm. This film is spared the fate of being an esoteric art house novelty by its wicked sense of humor. The unseen detectives, played by Fisher Stevens and Michael Buscemi, are often very funny -- flailing both the innocent and the guilty, the living and the dead, with their dispassionate, black humor.Strangely, however, this black humor is symptomatic of either the film's greatest failing or greatest success depending on your point of view. A film's success is usually predicated on the audience's emotional response to the characters, but in "Replay" it is hard to bond emotionally with the characters you see on the screen. I found my normal emotional response, even to the most horrific events, filtered through the dispassionate perspective of the detectives. Real life homicide detectives arrive at the scene of a crime after the violence. They don't see the passion, just the bloody aftermath. Nothing they can do will bring the victims back to life. Their job is to simply put the pieces together and assign blame. That's what they -- and we -- do here. We don't love the people we watch scurrying about the home and office . We don't hate them either. We just study them, hoping that they will give up their secrets. Many police procedurals let you see the world from the detective's perspective, but this film lets you experience it.Did I solve the crime before the detectives? I'm not saying, but it ultimately doesn't matter. The journey was as entertaining as the destination.