Neighborhood Watch – Movie Review (4/5)

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH is a new crime thriller starring Jack Quaid and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Based on the trailer, I was intrigued, but I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was. A powerful and surprising story. Read our full Neighborhood Watch movie review here!

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH is a new crime thriller with a story where the main protagonist has a mental illness that makes him question his own sanity. He has suffered for so long that he’s unsure if what he sees is real or a trick of the mind.

HAVE YOU HEARD OF ‘NOWHERE MEN’?

If the title of this movie is new to you, maybe you’ve heard of Nowhere Men? This was the original title of the movie, before it was changed to Neighborhood Watch.

Unfortunately, even when he is sure, the police won’t believe him due to his past as a patient in a mental hospital. This may sound like a boring or predictable movie, but it really isn’t. With Jack Quaid as the tormented protagonist, who teams up with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, it’s actually great!

Continue reading our Neighborhood Watch movie review below. Find it in theaters and On Demand from April 25, 2025.

Life as Simon is a mess and a struggle

In Neighborhood Watch, we meet the young man, Simon (Jack Quaid), who is desperately trying to get a handle on life. Only through a few lines about his past do we get the indication that he had a very troubled and violent childhood.

Basically, you need to pay attention, especially in scenes with his sister DeeDee (Malin Åkerman). His childhood trauma is something that clearly impacts him (and his mental health struggles) in the present day.

In Neighborhood Watch, Simon witnesses an abduction that he isn’t sure is real at first, but finally feels confident that he did truly see this. Unfortunately, the police see his history of mental illness and don’t believe him. They look into it, but not as much as they normally would.

Instead, Simon – very reluctantly, I should say – asks his neighbor Ed (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) for help. Ed is a former security guard who believes he should still be on active duty. Essentially, he has quite the troubled past himself.

Once Simon convinces Ed to help him, the unlikely duo proves surprisingly efficient as a team.

Surprisingly entertaining and deeply moving

While much of Neighborhood Watch is very entertaining and even quite funny, it does have a much deeper and more emotional side as well. Of course, with Jack Quaid and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the two key roles, we’re off to a good start.

We’ve seen Jack Quaid and Jeffrey Dean Morgan work the line between action, comedy, suspense, and drama before in The Boys and The Walking Dead, respectively.

The point is never to laugh at the mental health struggles of Simon (Jack Quaid), nor is it to accept when Ed (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) does something he really isn’t allowed to as a retired security guard. Instead, it’s to understand their situation and why they act the way they do.

Both want desperately to matter and have a positive impact on the world. Each for their own reason – one is just to find a way back to life, the other is more of a hero complex. In the end, they want to help save the girl they both believe is in dire need of help.

While on this mission, they discover that much of what they need can be found in the friendship that develops between them. By no wish or expectation of either, they seem destined to become friends. Each can give the other something they need.

Watch Neighborhood Watch in theaters or on demand

The director of Neighborhood Watch is Duncan Skiles, who previously also directed the 2018 serial killer movie The Clovehitch Killer. While the two movies are wildly different in plot and style, they both succeeded in vastly exceeding my expectations.

Duncan Skiles is an extremely skilled storyteller who does character-driven genre movies with the pace and vibe I enjoy most. For Neighborhood Watch, the screenplay comes from Sean Farley, who gets his debut as a screenwriter. A very impressive debut, I might add.

It’s a story where you have to keep asking yourself if you can trust the main character. Or rather, can this character trust what he sees, or is his mind playing tricks on him? Doing this right, so it doesn’t feel like a gimmick, requires a lot from both the storyteller and director. Both succeed!

Neighborhood Watch is in theaters and on demand on April 25, 2025.

Details

Director: Duncan Skiles
Writer: Sean Farley
Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jack Quaid, Malin Akerman, Cecile Cubiló