I like a thriller, and I love a good thriller. Unfortunately, Paul Oremland’s Surveillance is neither very good, nor a film I particularly liked. While I can’t but applaud the efforts of young filmmakers to get something – anything – to the screen, sometimes you can’t help but wonder whether all of their endeavour was actually worth it.
Adam (Tom Harper), an IT teacher at an illustrious public school, is picked up by a charming photographer, Jake (Sean Brosnan), while crusing the bars in Soho. After spending the night as Jake’s flat, he leaves, but manages to pick up the wrong mobile phone by mistake. When he returns to give it back, he witnesses a couple of thuggish men carrying something that looks suspiciously like a body in a sack out of the flat. Unfortunately, it seems that they were also after the very same mobile that he now happens to be in his possession, and they want it back.
Knowing he’s out of his depth, Adam turns to his old college friend, Amy (Dawn Steele), who now works for a high profile media baron (Nicholas Jones) on his high street rag. This chap also just happens to be Jake’s father, and when he hears what has allegedly been seen, he’s understandably interested in helping discover exactly what’s going on.
However, it soon becomes clear that Adam has stumbled upon something that’s out of his depth. He’s accused of having child porn on his computer, sacked from his job, staked by sinister looking heavies, and given a good talking to by an aristocratic fixer called ‘the saint’ (Simon Callow). It soon becomes clear that Jake knew something about a member of the royal family, something which the establishment is extremely keen on keeping quiet.
The plot of Surveillance isn’t too bad; it’s partly a mystery, partly a conspiracy thriller, and follows neatly on the footsteps of other films in which a hapless innocent stumbles across all kinds of sinister shenanigans being carried out by the upper classes. However, it is slight, and writer Kevin Sampson obviously had his own doubts, presenting it in the gimmicky format of being almost entirely told through surveillance cameras (webcams, cctv) or in documentary style direct-to-screen interviews. This must have seemed a great idea at the time – giving it an instant edgy, contemporary feel – but it’s used to such a degree that it’s actually extremely irritating, detracting from the plot and becoming increasingly repeptitive.
Furthermore, the film suffers from a rather cheap look. Films shot on DVD can be very effective, as shown by the likes of 28 Days Later, but in this case it all looks rather cheap and the colouring is somehow off; a little too glaring and artificial. It gives it an amateurish feel, almost like something shot for a deadbeat TV station with an expected audience of exactly seven people.
This isn’t at all helped by the acting. Tom Harper, who looks rather like David Tennant’s younger, Tory brother, is OK, and Dawn Steele (who had a recurring role in the TV series Monarch of the Glen) is fine, but the rest of the cast are simply awful. This is particularly true of the older hands: Simon Callow hams for all he’s worth in his cameo, and it’s all rather embarassing, while Nicholas Jones, who starred in the weird Peter Sellers gloomfest The Blockhouse, way back in 1973, treats it all with visible contempt.
Kevin Sampson is better known as the writer of a series of laddish, retro books including ‘Clubland’ and ‘Powder’, a couple of which (‘Outlaws’ and ‘the Crew’) have recently been filmed. Paul Oremland previously made the gay boxing drama Like It Is (98), which stars Dani Behr and Roger Daltrey, if that makes it sound any more appealing.
