Synopsis
An American accountant bombarded with cable news and the media's obsession with terrorist plots in the post 9-11 world, receives a jolt when an unattached Islamic graduate student moves in next door.
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Cast
- Kari MatchettMarla Allen
- Richard SchiffFBI Agent Tom Hilary
- Khaled Abol NagaGabe Hassan
- Peter KrauseTerry Allen
- Ian TraceyLieutenant Randall Lloyd
Recommendations
- 75
New York Daily News
Though Civic Duty seems to be a study in paranoid psychosis, it has just enough ambiguity to make you wonder if it isn't something else. You'll still be wondering when it's all over. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
While the film doesn't fully succeed in its striving for a Hitchcock-style ambiguity in its storytelling, it is consistently engrossing in its exploration of the fine line between civic duty and vigilantism. - 60
Variety
Unfolding largely within the confines of a single apartment complex, the well-structured scenario is arresting but ill-served by an overly fussy visual treatment from helmer Jeff Renfroe, while Peter Krause's increasingly psychotic performance as an amateur snoop frequently threatens to cross the line between forceful and off-putting. - 60
Village Voice
Expected ironies about homeland security, racial profiling, and fears of the Other land like a rain of anvils, and director Renfroe matches Krause's worked-up performance with a jiggly, flashy approximation of off-brand Tony Scott. - 60
Los Angeles Times
By the time the movie introduces an element of ambivalence in the story, lecture hall ennui has long ago set in, and no amount of jittery horror movie conventions can change it. With nowhere for any of the characters to go, literally, the story becomes a tendentious exercise in belaboring a point. - 58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ultimately less psychological thriller than polemic about the effects of living in an atmosphere of paranoia fed by daily threat-level assessments and round-the-clock TV news-channel coverage of fear-mongering speeches. - 50
The A.V. Club
Shooting in digital video, director Jeff Renfroe needlessly amps up the proceedings with jittery camerawork, jump cuts, and other technical hiccups meant to disorient the audience. - 50
Washington Post
The film is all cliched atmospherics and no real insight.