A flawed but worthwhile examination of paranoia and clashing cultures in the 21st century.

Full Review | May 21, 2007

It does build up considerable suspense and tension; Renfroe has learned well from Hitchcock.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 5, 2007

The film's pace lags toward the end, but its grasp of manufactured fear's dreary pervasiveness never falters.

| Original Score: 4/6 | May 5, 2007

All that flash serves to prop up what's in essence a one-act play, constructed around a political message that's telegraphed from the start.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 5, 2007

The vivid sense of time and place is the best thing about the initially promising, ultimately irritating psychological thriller Civic Duty.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 4, 2007

As thoughtful as it means to be -- its agenda is outlined by on-the-nose dialogue from its characters -- Civic Duty does little to go beyond this premise.

| May 4, 2007

A sharp 9/11 twist on Rear Window paranoia, Civic Duty is all the more effective for its chilling plausibility.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 4, 2007

An all-around disappointment.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 4, 2007

The filmmakers aren't able to pull it off but deserve credit for their attempt to be thought-provoking.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 4, 2007

Peter Krause, the fine actor from Six Feet Under, gives a one-note performance that seriously undermines Civic Duty

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 4, 2007

Though Civic Duty seems to be a study in paranoid psychosis, it has just enough ambiguity to make you wonder if it isn't something else. You'll still be wondering when it's all over.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 4, 2007

With nowhere for any of the characters to go, literally, the story becomes a tendentious exercise in belaboring a point.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 4, 2007

It begins by swiping a premise and concludes with an attempted robbery of our principles, pretending that today's world is too confusing for us to know whether to cheer for George Bush or to march with Michael Moore.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 4, 2007

If Mr. Krause weren't so good at making his psychotic break with reality (or was it?) so steadily, plausibly convincing, the movie would be unwatchable. Instead, it's a disturbing diary of one man's descent.

| Original Score: B | May 4, 2007

Not even Richard Schiff's droll underplaying as the drollest underplayer in the FBI can make dramatic sense of Civic Duty.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 4, 2007

Canadian director Jeff Renfroe builds only off-the-shelf suspense as Terry's suspicions increase.

| Original Score: 2/4 | May 4, 2007

Echoes of Rear Window abound, but any audience sympathy for the self-appointed detective is thwarted by Krause's typically sulky performance.

| May 4, 2007

Dig deep down into some bad movies and you occasionally find a good idea at the center. Civic Duty isn't one of those movies.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 4, 2007

Once the story's events reach a climactic pitch, the film stagnates in place for too long and loses momentum.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 4, 2007

Matchett, Schiff and Naga all contribute solid support, while Krause is downright exceptional as the nondescript accountant suddenly falling into media-fueled paranoia.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 4, 2007