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CIVIC DUTY
Directed & Edited by: Jeff Renfroe.
Produced by: Kelly Duncan.
Written by: Andrew Joiner.
Director of Photography: Dylan MacLeod.
Music by: Eli Krantzberg.
Released by: Freestyle Releasing.
Country of Origin: USA. 98 min. Rated R.
Starring: Peter Krause, Kari Matchett, Ian Tracey, Richard Schiff & Khaled Abol Naga.

Terry (Peter Krause) can’t hold down accounting jobs after being repeatedly downsized or ticking off the wrong people, and now he sits at home all day watching TV, barely glancing at the job ads, absorbed by the news media’s fearmongering. Enter the new neighbor, Gabe (Khaled Abol Naga), a Middle Eastern man supposedly a graduate student with little money.

As Terry’s paranoia kicks in, he follows Gabe by car to see where he works (a copy center). Prior to this, Terry spots him carrying “suspicious” boxes and throwing out garbage at three in the morning. It boils and boils in Terry’s innards that no one sees him as being sane in his suspicions, particularly an FBI agent (Richard Schiff), who he phones and then ticks off by constantly calling after a break-in in his apartment (this is after Terry goes, not entirely unintentionally, into Gabe’s home to see what potential terrorist goodies he may have). Finally, after much circumstantial not-quite-evidence in Terry’s mind, he confronts his neighbor with a handgun at his side. At this point, the story finally goes head-on into paranoid-thriller-land.

Civic Duty is, in terms of just the substance, a very good and even scathing attempt at digging into the media’s effect in pervading generalizations. Andrew Joiner’s screenplay focuses on the cause/effect from media overload and the underlying (if not outright) prejudice when jumping to conclusions.

And it’s a major credit to Krause that he makes Terry palpable, for in order to buy into the premise – previously shown in a slightly different perspective in Arlington Road – his mental state needs to be accurately portrayed. Krause makes Terry, at first, sympathetic or even empathetic to a degree – the average working man who’s down on his luck. Terry, a very terrifyingly real character, could not only exist right in the heartland of America but serves as a counterpoint to the unambiguous character of Gabe.

It’s quite the shame then that Civic Duty isn’t as compelling as it could be. Director Jeff Renfroe seems to have taken several cues from the Tony Scott music-video-on-drugs school of thrills. In scenes that should be deliberate in timing and careful in their revelations, there are frequent flashy, usually out-of-focus, quick bursts of light, as if to beat over the audience’s head that “this is exciting.” He and his cinematographer go for the easy – MUCH too easy – close-up to make moments more intense. Renfroe practically compromises the strong performances, particularly during the last 20 minutes, by not giving the actors much room to breathe. Jeff Gattanella
May 4, 2007