The current decade hasn’t been great for a lot of people, but it’s been just fine for Jack Quaid, at least from a career standpoint. Quaid, whose distinctive triangular grin immediately pegs him as the son of actor Dennis Quaid (his mother is actress Meg Ryan), rocketed out the gate in 2019 on Prime Video’s The Boys, and it seems like he’s worked non-stop ever since. Neighborhood Watch, director Duncan Skiles’ entertainingly low-key, ’80s-style crime thriller, is the third film he’s starred in so far this year, and we’re only in April.
Neighborhood Watch may wind up being the least successful and lowest-profile movie on his 2025 dance card and yet, in terms of what it means for his craft, it could be the most impactful. In the high-speed, high-concept Novocaine, Quaid showed he could carry a studio movie, while in the bloody clever Companion, he tried hard to convince us he could twist his boyish good looks into something sinister. But what he does in Neighborhood Watch is truly encouraging; he easily slides into a tricky role that many actors would have attacked at too high a pitch.
As Simon, a man with schizophrenia who’s quite sure he witnessed a kidnapping even if no one believes him, Quaid projects a lot with his darting eyes and withholding body language. And he’s well-paired with his The Boys co-star Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a former campus security guard who finds a modicum of meaning in his lonely life by helping Simon investigate the possible crime. The two power through the film’s low stakes and lack of action to deliver a lightly gritty, blithely sarcastic photocopy of Martin Brest’s Midnight Run and other Reagan-era odd couple pairings.
Jack Quaid Takes a One-Note Character and Makes Us Care About Him
Neighborhood Watch
2.5
/5
- Release Date
-
April 25, 2025
- Director
-
Duncan Skiles
- Writers
-
Sean Farley
- Jack Quaid and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are both terrific.
- The gritty urban vibe is effective.
- The tasty script keeps the character-based zingers coming.
- The tone wobbles between comedy, crime thriller, and small scale drama.
- The abrupt ending reminds us that this minor work is almost too minor.
Quaid does an admirable job dimensionalizing what is essentially a one-note character. Simon suffers from schizophrenia at the film’s beginning and, thankfully, he is not magically cured by the film’s abrupt ending. His win is a modest one, but it’s good enough when you consider where he started.
First seen during a disastrous job interview at a diner, Simon is clearly a troubled young man. Recently released from mandatory state hospitalization, Simon’s wrist shows the scars of self-harm and he’s given to spouting high-volume nonsense that freaks out whomever is in earshot. He also hears the menacing voice and hallucinates the vicious countenance of his abusive, late father, an over-the-top misstep in writer Sean Farley’s otherwise peppery, straight-forward script.
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Simon is about as unreliable a witness as you can find in his Birmingham, Alabama neighborhood (a milieu of empty storefronts and peeling paint that’s well captured by cinematographer Luke McCoubrey). So, when he thinks he sees a young woman in an alley being beaten and shoved into a white van, it’s no wonder the local cops don’t believe him. With no one willing to help, Simon knocks on the door of his ornery neighbor, Ed (Morgan), who recognizes Simon as the neighborhood “taffy brain.”
While the ascendent Quaid is the audience magnet here, it’s Morgan’s Ed who is the more interesting character. Sporting a side-swept combover and high cholesterol, the crotchety Ed lost his identity when he lost his job as a campus security guard. He spends his days at home (good work there by production designer Adam Pruitt) losing money in online poker, eating dinner from a TV tray and proudly inflating his role as a law enforcement officer. So when Simon asks for Ed’s help finding the kidnapped woman, his belief that Simon imagined the whole thing is outweighed by his desire to act like a real-deal crime stopper.
‘Neighborhood Watch’ is no ‘Zodiac’… And That’s Okay
Simon and Ed’s investigation will hardly conjure up memories of David Fincher’s Zodiac, but that’s not the idea. Simon and Ed are a typical movie mismatch, forced to work together by circumstance and the notion that each one is using the search for the missing woman to prove their worth if not their sanity. With Simon mostly relegated to keeping his mental issues at bay, Ed carries the burden of Farley’s salty zingers, which the terrific Morgan runs with in wannabe tough guy style.
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The main impediment to their search is Simon’s penchant for lapsing into word salads and the occasional fits of rage, as when the pair visits the DMV to discover who owns the white van and, later, when Simon has a meltdown at an auto junkyard. Per genre requirements, Simon’s relationship with Ed eventually begins to thaw, with the cranky former campus cop suggesting an effective coping mechanism for Simon’s mental illness and teaching him how to spot a liar (hint: it involves blinking).
‘Neighborhood Watch’ Is Content to Be Moderately Engaging
Neighborhood Watch is fine as far as it goes, but there are moments when you wish there was a little more substance. Simon’s schizophrenia is, wisely, never a source of audience ridicule, but it’s mostly relegated to an investigative roadblock, save for the brief scenes with Simon’s supportive yet exasperated sister (Malin Akerman) that add some welcome backstory. Skiles (2018’s The Clovehitch Killer) does reach for something extra as the duo gets closer to solving the mystery, but the final disposition of the missing woman introduces a serious issue that’s a little above this film’s pay grade. It was working better when staying in its lane as a minor, moderately flavorful, character-driven crime thriller.
Even if Skiles delivers enough of that vibe to get Neighborhood Watch over the finish line, the film will mostly be remembered as Jack Quaid’s brief stop in Birmingham on his way to further stardom. Neighborhood Watch, a production of Redwire Pictures and Filmopoly Production and distributed by RLJE Films, opens in theaters and on VOD April 25.
