Grade: C+

Verdict: He likes to watch, but you might not.

Details: Starring James Spader, Keanu Reeves. Rated R for violence and language. One hour, 33 minutes.

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Review: There's a resonant 21st-century theme in "The Watcher," an otherwise standard serial-killer thriller. Set in our world of nonstop TV, flickering computer screens and cell phones, the movie unleashes a sicko named Griffin (Keanu Reeves) who knows that most people are too media-saturated nowadays to bother noticing the fellow humans sharing the same sidewalk or subway car.

"We're all stacked right on top of each other, but we don't notice each other any more," he says to his main pawn, a homicide detective named Campbell (James Spader), whom Griffin has followed to Chicago all the way from Los Angeles. That city was the site of his previous murders, including one woman who has a personal relationship to the burned-out cop.

Griffin's M.O. is to stalk pretty women, learn their habits, snap their photos from afar - then surprise them at home with a loop of piano wire around the throat. But the thrill of the kill has become secondary to his imagined bond with Campbell, his prime audience. "We need each other, we define each other, we're yin and yang," Griffin insists as their catch-me-if-you-can games continue.

For a while, Reeves' famously benign, whoa-dude delivery suggests a scary amorality that works for the character. But as the movie lengthens, he just seems blank. Just when the character needs to be getting creepier - as he demands appreciation from Spader - Reeves starts to earn unintended giggles from the audience.

Spader is solid, drawing on a stern, deadpan persona as a guy who has seen way too much, and whose guilt manifests in high blood pressure and sudden migraines. After virtually vanishing from the screen for a few years, the actor (often typecast in the past as a yuppie swine) seems to be reshaping his image as a tough loner.

Oscar winner Marisa Tomei as Spader's therapist doesn't come close to the gold this time, but that's because the script sticks her with the girl-in-peril role. Making the strongest impression is scene-stealer Chris Ellis as Spader's good-old-boy police colleague; he's the kind of guy who body tackles a fleeing suspect without letting it get in the way of a simultaneous conversation on his cell phone.

Debut director Joe Charbanic manages to wring some suspense out of stock situations. He even gets some gripping moments out of a long chase scene (via foot and vehicle). Too often, though, he falls back on clichés, including heavy breathing on the soundtrack, and an arty reliance on blurry slo-mo flashbacks.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service