Replay (2003)

The viewer becomes the eyes of two detectives who never appear on camera as they unravel a mystery on a video screen, watching tapes from twenty-one hidden cameras which have captured a ... See full summary »

Director:

Lee Bonner

Writers:

Lee Bonner, Sean Paul Murphy

Stars:

Fisher Stevens, Michael Buscemi, Rebecca Mader

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Fisher Stevens	...	Blu (voice)
Michael Buscemi	...	Scotty
Rebecca Mader	...	Belinda Brown
Nestor Serrano	...	Seth Collison
Chance Kelly	...	Chester Robb
Shae D'lyn	...	Ellie
Richard Pelzman	...	Quinn
Mary Birdsong	...	Nicola
John Lumia	...	Harley
Douglas Crosby	...	Smink
Richard DeAngelis	...	Morty
Tim Caggiano	...	Cal
Mark Joy	...	Ted
Jeff Perryson	...	David
Jay Hillmer	...	Doctor

Storyline

The viewer becomes the eyes of two detectives who never appear on camera as they unravel a mystery on a video screen, watching tapes from twenty-one hidden cameras which have captured a crime in progress. Three gunmen break into the home of gem dealer Seth Collison to steal the Sophia Diamond, a thirty-three carat stone valued at ten million dollars. Five minutes later the gunmen are dead. The case is closed before police find out about the hidden cameras. At eleven o'clock that night, the task of watching the tapes falls to secondary detectives Blu and Scotty. Through their eyes we discover what really went down.

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Plot Keywords:

hidden camera | diamond | striptease | nonlinear timeline | surveillance camera | 

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Taglines:

21 Hidden Cameras. 3 Dead Gunmen. 1 Inside Man. 6 Suspects. Can You Solve It?

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Genres:

Crime | Mystery

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

November 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

21 Eyes

Filming Locations:

Annapolis, Maryland, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Eastern Show

Technical Specs

Runtime:

85 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Chester Robb: [on tape] Let me get, uh, rare roast beef with sweet peppers, tomatoes, balsamic vinaigrette on an Italian roll, maybe some fries, see what the soup is and a diet Coke with lemon.
Blu: [watching the tape] It's a shame he didn't know it was his last meal, he could have ordered a regular Coke.

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Connections

References The Maltese Falcon (1941)

User Reviews

The Passion of the Heist

Two detectives assigned to watch twenty-one security camera tapes of a violent but seemingly open-and-shut jewel heist discover that seeing isn't necessarily believing in this fresh and unique film recently placed in evidence at the DC Independent Film Festival. Sounds like an open-and-shut movie? Not so. This movie has a hook: We never see the detectives. We only hear their running commentary as we watch the tapes along with them. Everything we see is as new to them as it is to us which gives the audience a chance to figure out the crime before them.

"Replay" is a movie where perspective is everything, and the film makers boldly maintain that perspective even if it means letting the movie screen go completely blue, like a home VCR, while the detectives change tapes. They replay some tapes. They slow things down. They speed things up. They sometimes pause a frame to talk about what they are seeing or make a phone call. In a sense, this is the very antithesis of a "motion picture." Yet it works, and not just in some theoretical realm. This film is spared the fate of being an esoteric art house novelty by its wicked sense of humor. The unseen detectives, played by Fisher Stevens and Michael Buscemi, are often very funny -- flailing both the innocent and the guilty, the living and the dead, with their dispassionate, black humor.

Strangely, however, this black humor is symptomatic of either the film's greatest failing or greatest success depending on your point of view. A film's success is usually predicated on the audience's emotional response to the characters, but in "Replay" it is hard to bond emotionally with the characters you see on the screen. I found my normal emotional response, even to the most horrific events, filtered through the dispassionate perspective of the detectives. Real life homicide detectives arrive at the scene of a crime after the violence. They don't see the passion, just the bloody aftermath. Nothing they can do will bring the victims back to life. Their job is to simply put the pieces together and assign blame. That's what they -- and we -- do here. We don't love the people we watch scurrying about the home and office . We don't hate them either. We just study them, hoping that they will give up their secrets. Many police procedurals let you see the world from the detective's perspective, but this film lets you experience it.

Did I solve the crime before the detectives? I'm not saying, but it ultimately doesn't matter. The journey was as entertaining as the destination.