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Civic Duty
Freestyle Releasing

Civic Duty reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 48 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.0 out of 10
based on 17 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language and some threatening situations

Starring Peter Krause, Khaled Abol Naga, Richard Schiff, Kari Matchett, and Ian Tracey

When an Islamic graduate student moves in next door to an American accountant, the accountant's life becomes filled with suspicion of post 9/11 terrorist activities. (Freestyle Releasing)


GENRE(S): Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Andrew Joiner  
DIRECTED BY: Jeff Renfroe  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: May 4, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA / Canada 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
New York Daily News Jack 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 Reporter Frank 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.
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60
Variety Justin 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 Voice Jim 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 Times Carina 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-Intelligencer Sean 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.
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50
Washington Post Desson Thomson
The film is all cliched atmospherics and no real insight.
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50
Chicago Reader J.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.
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50
TV Guide Ken 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.
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50
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott 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.
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50
Austin Chronicle Marjorie 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.
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50
The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz
Initially promising, ultimately irritating psychological thriller.
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50
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
A noble try that disappoints.
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38
Boston Globe Ty 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.
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38
New York Post Lou 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.
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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.
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38
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
A clammy little number that might've been funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this movie in our forums

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