Susan Granger’s review of “EYE OF THE BEHOLDER” (Destination Films)
It’s strictly surrealistic style over substance in this weird, wannabe psychological thriller about a man’s journey into obsession. Ewan McGregor (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) plays a lonely British intelligence agent, known as The Eye, whose wife has left him, taking their daughter, whom he adored. His current mission is to track a woman – that’s Ashley Judd (Double Jeopardy) – who is suspected of blackmailing the son of a prominent official in Washington D.C.. He locates her, plants the kind of sophisticated, high-tech surveillance equipment that would make James Bond drool with envy, and starts his spy mission – only to observe her brutally stab the young man in question to death. Instead of apprehending her, however, The Eye follows her as she subsequently lures more men to their gruesome deaths. He becomes totally obsessed with her, even protecting her from arrest on several occasions. His ludicrous, deranged, stalking behavior is inexplicable and writer/director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) doesn’t give us many clues – except astrology and numerology symbols. Yeah, The Eye’s haunted by his little daughter whose apparition appears often during the first half of the film, pleading “Let her go, Daddy.” But then, even the child-ghost disappears – without an explanation. And The Eye’s only human contact seems to be with a telephone supervisor named Hilary (k.d. lang – also heard on the soundtrack, along with Chrissie Hynde) and a psychiatrist (Genevieve Bujold), who knew Judd ‘way-back-when. And Ashley Judd’s sexy, slashing serial killer is desperately looking for the “Daddy” she never had. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, The Eye of the Beholder is a moody, murky 4. Incoherent is an operative word. So’s bizarre.
