Eyewitness (1981)

Eyewitness is an absolute boring waste of time. I can usually find something entertaining in the movies I watch, but this film has no redeeming qualities. The performances are flat and the story is a muddled mix of a crime thriller and a creepy romance. I am not going to waste time discussing this one in any kind of detail. James Woods was pretty good considering the material he had to work with, but Sigourney Weaver was just terrible.

A quick synopsis of the story goes something like this: William Hurt plays the lonely Vietnam Veteran who happens to now be a janitor in an office building. He has an unhealthy obsession with a TV reporter played by Sigourney. James Woods comes in as the wacky friend of the Janitor who is always in trouble. Long story short, the janitor tries to get a relationship going with the TV reporter by leading her on about how much information he has about a murder that took place in his building. He tries to come on to her and she shoots him down. This happens like 10 times. They barely reference the murder and that story line just kind of fades into the background. Either director Peter Yates is incompetent or the screenplay was absolutely horrible.



I am going to give Peter Yates a second chance and check out his 1988 drama The House of Carroll Street. It stars Jeff Daniels and I hope it doesn’t suck as much as this one did.