Freeze Frame

Rating:
Summary: Paranoia
Review: This is an impressive feature debut from writer-director John Simpson that overcomes the limitations of a low budget with an imaginative premise and stylish filmmaking. Comedian Lee Evans is quite good in a change-of-pace role as a Sean Veil, a man who was once arrested for the grisly murders of a mother and her two daughters. He was eventually released without a conviction, but was so traumatized by his false arrest that he has since taken to relentlessly videotaping his every move 24 hours a day so that he will have an airtight alibi should the police ever suspect him of another murder.

Of course, he eventually does become the suspect in another murder and discovers to his horror that someone has swiped the exact videos from his vast library that would prove his innocence. The rest of the movie covers his attempts to convince the unsympathetic cops that he is indeed innocent and to find out who is trying to set him up.

Through some slick editing that constantly cuts back and forth between human and videocam point-of-views, the movie establishes a kinetic visual sense that keeps us immersed in the protagonist's obsessively skewed world. While there are some obvious plotholes (how does the protagonist make a living when he's so isolated from the rest of the world?), the movie's premise is so cleverly offbeat and brought to life in such a vivid manner that you can't help but run with it. For the first hour this is an involving and original suspense thriller that keeps us guessing as to where it's headed.

Unfortunately, in the last 15 minutes the movie deteriorates into a talky parade of overwrought plot twists that turns laughable in its desperate attempt to tie up all loose ends just a tad too nicely. A more subtle and less contrived finale might have put this one into the same class as "Memento" or "Pi".

Still, "Freeze Frame" is a sometimes haunting and sometimes poignant vision of extreme paranoia in the modern world. While it doesn't quite get under your skin, it does leave a few marks trying to get there.