Surveillance: Serial Killers Cloaked as Government Agents

I recently viewed Surveillance for the purposes of this blog's first liberty-oriented movie review(without spoilers).

It starts out with the typical Hollywood violence as two serial killers murder a couple. From there, it transitions to a small rural community trying to solve several murders from the previous day while two FBI agents descend upon the community. Slowly, the story takes the perspective of each surviving member of the previous days' events. Finally, it speeds up as the serial killers are discovered from within and complete their violence before moving onto what we presume is another hapless rural community.

From a neutral point of view, it did go quite slowly through the beginning and middle of the movie. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but if one is looking for a high-paced action film, this is not it. Or if one has become accustomed to immediate gratification, as the internet and other contemporary parts of society teach us, they will find it difficult to stay focused. In my humble opinion, the ending is quite worth the wait.

The way the movie brought in characters with varied backgrounds was quite appreciated. It was good to see how the producer and/or director thought a soccer mom and the cocaine-snorting woman interacted peacefully while the step-dad seemed to look down upon the cocaine-snorting couple. The little girl was quite her own enigma in that she handled tragedy quite well without bursting into tears, observed events well, and connected the dots with skill.

From an anarchist point of view, it was quite refreshing to see statist law enforcement officers(both rural and FBI) divide amongst themselves. In addition to the division, the disastrous(in both an economic and civil liberty sense) consequences that result from the rural police officers' boredom are a vindicating relief from the pro-cop dramas and movies that plague our society. (I would note, for any non-anarchists that read this, that I do not believe all cops behave recklessly, but that I enjoy and support anti-cop fictional dramatizations when pro-cop fictional dramatizations are so prevalent. My objection to police officers is on a systemic foundational level.) The games played by the cops upon their hapless hostages remind me of scenes from Super Trooper while simultaneously causing me to wonder how often these cruel joke are unwittingly played upon us.

The little girl's observation of the events leading up to both the mass murders and her subsequent action was a lovely vindication to the idea that adults have superior wisdom. Cheers for Youth Rights whether it was intentional or not.

Overall, if you can handle violence and slow speed, this is a great movie with interesting character interactions and a fun serious of twists, though the major twist isn't completely out of the blue in that you can sense it coming if you pay attention. If you are an anarchist you can enjoy the added benefits of being reminded just why the statist system of law enforcement is horribly flawed. Whether you torrent or buy(unfortunately its not on DVD yet) movies, it should definitely be considered.

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