Civic Duty
Freestyle Releasing | Release Date: May 4, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
11
Negative:
4

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Though Civic Duty seems to be a study in paranoid psychosis, it has just enough ambiguity to make you wonder if it isn't something else. You'll still be wondering when it's all over. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
While the film doesn't fully succeed in its striving for a Hitchcock-style ambiguity in its storytelling, it is consistently engrossing in its exploration of the fine line between civic duty and vigilantism. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin Chang
Unfolding largely within the confines of a single apartment complex, the well-structured scenario is arresting but ill-served by an overly fussy visual treatment from helmer Jeff Renfroe, while Peter Krause's increasingly psychotic performance as an amateur snoop frequently threatens to cross the line between forceful and off-putting. Read full review
60
Village VoiceJim Ridley
Expected ironies about homeland security, racial profiling, and fears of the Other land like a rain of anvils, and director Renfroe matches Krause's worked-up performance with a jiggly, flashy approximation of off-brand Tony Scott. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
By the time the movie introduces an element of ambivalence in the story, lecture hall ennui has long ago set in, and no amount of jittery horror movie conventions can change it. With nowhere for any of the characters to go, literally, the story becomes a tendentious exercise in belaboring a point. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Ultimately less psychological thriller than polemic about the effects of living in an atmosphere of paranoia fed by daily threat-level assessments and round-the-clock TV news-channel coverage of fear-mongering speeches. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Shooting in digital video, director Jeff Renfroe needlessly amps up the proceedings with jittery camerawork, jump cuts, and other technical hiccups meant to disorient the audience. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
The film is all cliched atmospherics and no real insight. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
It's a subject that guarantees a certain amount of liberal tongue clucking, though director Jeff Renfroe wisely concentrates on suspense instead of sermons. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Director Jeff Renfroe and screenwriter Andrew Joiner's flashy psychological thriller wants to say something important about the dangers of a fear-mongering media and resultant ethnic profiling in an age of terrorism, but their warnings are undone by a tricky plot that tries to have it both ways while leaving the audience arguing among themselves as to what it all means. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Civic Duty stands out amid the new wave of terrorism-paranoia thrillers. It's a taut drama set primarily within the confines of two apartments in the same urban building complex and keeps the viewer guessing until the end regarding the reliability of its two central protagonists. Read full review
50
The New York TimesMatt Zoller Seitz
Initially promising, ultimately irritating psychological thriller. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
A noble try that disappoints. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
A clammy little number that might've been funded by the Department of Homeland Security. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
It wants to make an important political statement, which might have been dandy if it had anything remotely cogent to say. Read full review
38
New York PostLou Lumenick
Peter Krause, the fine actor from "Six Feet Under," gives a one-note performance that seriously undermines Civic Duty, a thriller mining minimal dramatic payoff from the potentially potent subject of post-9/11 paranoia. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Faced with a limited location and concept, Renfroe points his camera everywhere: The movie's seriously overshot, never settling for one angle when five would do. Read full review
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