Product Details

• Actors: Peter Krause
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: October 2, 2007
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000TJBN6M
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #60,987 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Civic Duty" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Peter Krause (Six Feet Under) uses his everyman good looks to subversive effect in Civic Duty, an effective little thriller. Recently fired accountant Terry Allen (Krause) grows increasingly suspicious of his new neighbor, an Islamic student (Egyptian star Khaled Abol Naga) who keeps late hours. Allen's wife Marla (Kari Matchett, 24) believes he's being paranoid and their relationship crumbles under the pressure, which only leads Allen to obsess all the more about this possible terrorist--until he finally acts on his suspicions. As the confrontation escalates out of his control, Allen is forced deeper into a corner he never anticipated. Civic Duty is a lean, sinewy movie, making the most of its concise storyline and claustrophobic setting. Though the director tries perhaps a little too hard to insert some visual flash, this is essentially and actor's showcase. Krause, though not always the most expressive performer, does a good job of drawing the audience into his increasingly untrustworthy consciousness. Matchett and Naga turn in solid work, while Richard Schiff (The West Wing) is particularly strong as a doubtful FBI agent that Allen contacts. Civic Duty is more interested in psychology (and cinematic suspense) than politics, but it delves just enough into the issues around terrorism--What do we lose in the pursuit of security? What might drive a terrorist to such horrific acts? How do we fight violence without being consumed by it ourselves?--to give the movie some heft, something for an audience to chew on when it leaves. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Angry and depressed over losing his job, accountant Terry Allen (Peter Krause) begins to suspect his new, Middle Eastern neighbor is at the center of a terrorist conspiracy. Terry becomes obsessed about revealing the man's true identity and finally takes matters into his own hands ⦠with shocking results.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Paranoia fuels the leap from being vigilant to being a vigilante, October 4, 2007

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

I was always surprised in the wake of 9/11 that we never heard of an instance where an Arab looking passenger got up to use the lavatory on an airplane and was attacked by the other passengers. With tensions and suspicion both running high I thought such incidents were inevitable, but if they happened I never heard about them. There was the incident where six Muslim clerics where pulled off of an airplane in Minneapolis because the pilot received a note from a passenger pointing out there were "Arabic men" on the plane, but that has been the exception rather than the rule (the airport in Minneapolis is apparently just a place where strange things happen if you pray in Arabic or go around tapping your foot too often in a restroom).

"Civic Duty" is a 2006 film that deals with the sort of paranoid over-reaction to the terrorist attack that I had suspected might become commonplace. Terry Allen (Peter Krause) has just lost his job as an accountant and without work to keep his mind occupied he becomes obsessed with coverage of the War on Terror on cable television. Especially since a "Middle Eastern" looking young man (Khaled Abol Naga) has moved into an apartment that Terry can see from his window. We already know that Terry is predisposed to see the worst in people after he cruelly points out to a smiling bank teller the idiotic redundancy of the term "ATM Machine." Like those strange little beings on those annoying television commercials, Terry stars off sour and then tries to be sweet. It is just that we never really buy it, any more than we can really believe that there is a terrorist in that other apartment. The more desperate Terry is to believe it, the more we resist the idea. But is the film just toying with us?

Everything Terry sees--and he goes too far to see too much--fits into the "profile" that the media has been talking about. Terry calls the FBI, but Agent Tom Hilary (Richard Schiff) seems more suspicious of Terry than of the subject he has under surveillance. Terry's wife, Marla (Kari Matchett), sees the glass as barely wet and not nearly full, and her approach to the situation is to go over and knock on the neighbor's door, introduce herself, and find out who the guy is and what he does. The answers satisfy Marla, but not Terry, who is starting to spout rationalizations usually associated with being a good Nazi rather than a vigilante America. There is an overwhelming feeling that this is all going to end badly, and it is just a question of how badly it is going to end, even if you do not foresee the particular way the end game plays out here.

Ultimately, "Civic Duty" is more about psychology than it is politics. Director Jeff Renfroe shoots scenes to enhance the idea of paranoia, while the screenplay by Andrew Joiner tries to keep Terry tottering on the fence as to whether he is right or if he is wrong. The epilogue to the film seems at first glance to be one last gambit on that idea of ambiguity, but if you keep a careful watch on Terry's left eye you can decode the final scene successfully. The DVD has the trailer for the film and that is it, which seems totally bizarre these days when most DVDs seem to have way too many extras. What this film is doing and what it has to say would seem worth pursuing a bit more, but apparently we are simply to watch "Civic Duty" and come to terms with it on our own.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Freedom and fear have always been at war." This time without the Irony., September 17, 2007

By	mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

"Civic Duty" exploits the paranoia of post-9/11 America to create a timely, suspenseful, and critical thriller about the fear of terrorists in our midst. Terry Allen (Peter Krause) is short-tempered and insecure after losing his accountant job just as he and wife Marla (Kari Matchett) were looking forward to buying a house. Left with little to do beside send out resumes and watch television reports of the growing menace of Islamic terrorists, Terry begins to see something furtive in the activities of his new neighbor Gabe Hassan (Khaled Abol Naga), a Muslim graduate student.

Much of "Civic Duty"'s success, both as suspense and as metaphor for America's socio-political obsession, relies on the credibility of Peter Krause's performance. Insecurity and idleness turn Terry into a paranoid bully. He's irrational, but that doesn't mean that he's wrong. Director Jeff Renfroe keeps us guessing. Has Terry stumbled upon something sinister in spite of himself? Is Hassan a terrorist, completely innocent, or perhaps a criminal of a more mundane nature? Regardless, Terry's belief that someone is out to get him is insular and self-destructive. A theatrical trailer is the only bonus feature on the Red Envelope 2007 DVD.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great suspensful thriller with an important message !, August 9, 2007

By	Metallian "stained89" - See all my reviews

When I was reading the back of this DVD I was thinking to myself, well it could be a good movie, but from the very moment it got started it grab me, and was captivating until the very dramatic end.

Terry is a good looking middle class accountant, who is age wise either in his late 20s or early 30s. His life clearly takes a turn for the worse, when he is suddenly and unexpectedly laid off. Now, the problems with his wife begin: there's the impending question of how to pay their mortage on their new home, and most of all how soon Terry will get another job, to make ends meet. But all these problem pale in comparison to Terry's newest obsession with his Middle Eastern looking neighbor. To Terry he is behaving increasingly suspicious and fits neatly into the profile of an islamic extremist and terrorist.

This new obsession which he discovered soon starts to drive a big wedge between him and his wife. She simply dosen't at all approve of Terry's suspicions. Needless to say, that things get more drastic and out of control from now on. Terry, after some time calls on the FBI, hoping literally that they will kick down the door of the new Arab neighbor and simply arrest him, since he saw a type of chemical laboratory in his apartment. The FBI Agent, an elder experience professional, soon tells Terry in no uncertain terms to back off, since this is a free nation, where everyone has certain constitutional rights, and these are always to be respected, hence, kicking down someones door, because of a mere suspicion or notion, is simply out of the question. Moreover, Terry is warned not ever again to go into this apartment, (he did so after he knocked and found the door to be open), or else the FBI will start investigating him and making his life miserable.

I don't want to give away too much of the excellent plot, but suffice it to say that this DVD really pickes up on the suspense as it goes along. The fabulous thing about it, is not only its very realistic and current plot, but rather that it has a clear unmistakable message for all its viewers. And this message is definitely against all those neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration, as well as its lackeys in the mass media, that continually scare people in the USA into submission, by relentlessly arguing that there is a constant and very dangerous threat to every American because of islamic terrorism.

One can see this new movie either as a parodie and satire of the current Bush government or, as was much more likely intended, an authentic warning of the effects of an overly repressive administration that has already taken away many of the fundamental civil rights, that were guaranteed by the constitution. Things like the Homeland Security and the Patriot Act, are thus clear violations of the cherished civil liberty that the US always stood for, and still claims to stand for. Furthermore, this movie, shows the mirror image of an (American) extremist, brilliantly played by Peter Krause, who believes himself to be on a mission to save the US from fanatics, but in the event of doing so himself becomes a fanatic, obsessed with anything and anyone that might look arabic, Middle Eastern or just look and act different from any mainstream norms. This is ingeniously shown in the long scene where he totally disregards his neighbors right to privacy and general civil rights, and takes matters into his own hands, and becomes a type of vigilante, who can no longer be convinced that his suspicions have deluded him, and turned him into distrubed fanatic that sees a Jehadist behind every closed curtain.