“Rageaholic meets schizophrenic” may not sound like a very enticing hook for a buddy comedy, but that dysfunctional duo proves pretty good company in “Neighborhood Watch.” Duncan Skiles’ first feature since 2018’s darker crime tale “The Clovehitch Killer” recalls shaggier 1970s cinema in its emphasis on quirky character dynamics over suspense, action or plot intricacies. Once again taking a deft low-key approach to a sturdy script (this time by Sean Farley), and armed with engaging lead performances from Jack Quaid and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Skiles has crafted another accessibly offbeat not-quite-genre item. RLJE is giving a limited theatrical release to “Neighborhood Watch” Friday, along with an on-demand debut, which should reward viewers looking for satisfying if not explosive entertainment.
We first meet thirtyish Simon McNally (Quaid) in a stressful situation — but then, nearly any situation is stressful for him. Interviewing for a Birmingham, Ala. restaurant job, he quickly unravels when asked why he’s been unemployed for a decade. (Because the answer would involve hospitalization for mental issues.) In addition to bouts of “word salad,” he’s also prone to visual and audio hallucinations; the belittling voice in his head is usually that of an abusive late father. Medication appears to be doing little for his condition, which goes unnamed but seems in the vicinity of schizophrenia. Needless to say, he scares off any offer of employment, to the dismay of older sister Deedee (Malin Akerman), with whom he lives. She’s working just part-time while attending nursing school, so supporting them both has become a strain.
Off-putting in a different way is Ed Deerman (Morgan), an unfriendly next-door neighbor who’s an old-fashioned male “Karen” — the type forever trying to lay the chastising hand of authority on any miscreants he spots. His punitive overreaction to a student caught shoplifting in a college cafeteria is frowned upon, particularly because Ed is no longer the campus security chief. In fact, he has presumably been forced into restless retirement, for reasons unspecified but easy to guess. He’s an angry pest whose high blood pressure is further spiked by bad habits such as alcohol and online poker.
Thus he’s hardly welcoming to uninvited guest Simon, pounding on his door. Believing Ed to be “some kind of cop,” that excitable younger man begs assistance in helping a woman he saw smacked around, then thrown into a van in a downtown alley not long before. At least he thinks that’s what he saw — Simon can never be fully sure whether what he’s experiencing is real or not.
Irate and dismissive, but then reluctantly indulgent, Ed agrees to humor Simon, if only with the expectation of dispelling his paranoia. But the sleuthing trail actually provides enough evidence to keep them going, suggesting the existence of a local human trafficking network. Once alerted, its operators react badly to discovering two outsiders sniffing around. Also problematic for our protagonists is that as they pursue these bad guys, their own separate police records for past disorderly conduct stir actual cops (led by Cecile Cubilo’s Det. Glover) to pursue them.
Quaid limns Simon’s alternately fearful, hysterical, rational and incoherent behavior in a manner nuanced enough that we see it’s all part of a psychological continuum, not a series of flashy performance highlights. Morgan’s flair for hard-edged snark is well deployed for an initially unsympathetic character who warms up as the tale proceeds, while maintaining his sour wit. Akerman doesn’t get a lot of scenes, but makes the sister’s burden of sibling care palpable — though there isn’t much backstory for any of these central figures. The supporting roles are nicely done, encompassing a small gallery of low-echelon rogues.
Focusing on Birmingham’s more decrepit, seen-better-days side, Skiles etches a milieu in which it’s easy to slip onto society’s margins, because there’s slim berth for winners here. (This is, however, one of those movies set in the South where hardly anyone has a regional accent.) While seldom broadly funny, “Watch” maintains a sense of the absurd even amidst violence, as its villains as well as heroes are somewhat blundering.
There’s no great effort at building tension, or orchestrating major setpieces. But the narrative moves along at an engaging clip, and there’s a pleasing emotional payoff to the way things ultimately come together in Farley’s screenplay. The direction is skillful yet self-effacing, often most notable for what it soft-sells — like the tolerance lesson implicit in Ed’s learning to work alongside Simon’s disabilities, rather than treating him as a straight-up lunatic. To their mutual benefit, the two become an awkward yet semi-functional team, minus any excess of warm-and-fuzzies.
Tech and design contributions are unobtrusively effective, with Jojo Draven’s original score adding discreet notes of bemusement and peril. The one bland aspect to “Neighborhood Watch” is its generic title, which has been applied to too many projects already and boasts no clear relevance to this one.
