Neighborhood Watch Review: A Bungled Kidnap

A buddy cop movie without buddies or cops, Neighborhood Watch relies on two charismatic leads to keep its undercooked and uninvolving plot going.

Directed by Duncan Skiles, who successfully plunged into murky crime drama with The Clovehitch Killer, this new movie tries to blend elements of that serial killer thriller with some ‘buddy cop’ antics and a race against time, but to uneven effect. 

The mismatched cops trope has often been a pathway to box office gold, but a new spin is needed to keep the formula fresh. Neighborhood Watch does try to bring something new to the table in the form of Simon’s mental illness struggles. As he suffers from hallucinations and hearing voices, this illness makes Simon a very unreliable witness for both police and audience alike. Yet, when he sees a young woman being bundled into the back of a van and kidnapped, he has to do something, no matter what the voices in his head say. With the police and his sister (Malin Åkerman) unable to help, Simon turns to the only person he can find in his rush to save the kidnapped girl. Simon’s neighbour, retired and embittered former security man Deerman (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is wary of Simon’s tics, but is energized by the chance to solve a case. 

Both Quaid and Morgan have established themselves in TV roles (The latter featured in The Walking Dead), and played parts in larger film ensembles (Scream, Watchmen), but this smaller scale project allows them to showcase their charisma with little to get in the way. Morgan is cast a little too young as the old timer determined to prove he’s still able to do the job, but he brings a good deal of raw anger and energy to Deerman. Together, the actors are a vital lynchpin for the action. Their investigation leads them to a variety of cops, pimps and shady dealers, but they’re all too briefly onscreen to make an impact. Sean Farley’s script is dependent on two magnetic actors to drive it on, and Quaid and Morgan fit that bill nicely.

However, as much as we root for the leads to move forward with their investigation, Neighborhood Watch is too slack and low-key to get the blood pumping. Too often, it forgets about the kidnapped woman while watching its leads work their way around each other’s foibles. Simon’s illness offers potential as a narrative device, but it ends up hampering proceedings, with too much screentime devoted to trying to explain it to others. While it bears some similarities to schizophrenia, Simon’s illness is never confirmed by name, and there’s little enthusiasm on the script’s part to explore it beyond how it drives the action. A film like this was unlikely to offer much depth to Simon’s affliction, but it could have offered some grounding in the reality of such an illness, instead of dropping in symptoms whenever they offer dramatic tension.

After too much dilly-dallying, Neighborhood Watch does improve as it goes on, with a handful of tense moments and standoffs, as our less-than-dynamic duo and the police converge on the truth. By then, though, the slack plotting and the cleaver marks of a harsh edit undermine what the film could have been. Neighborhood Watch isn’t anything special in any of the genres it straddles, but thanks to the efforts of its leading men, it’s a fitfully entertaining and undemanding watch.

Neighborhood Watch was released in select US theaters and on demand in the US, Canada and Mexico on April 25, 2025.