Eyewitness

1981's EYEWITNESS is oddly titled, as its protagonist in fact is not present for the grisly murder that sets the story into motion.  Daryll (William Hurt) is a janitor who enjoys the night shift in an NYC office building.  One evening, after hearing a ruckus, he wanders into the office of a wealthy Asian executive, finding his throat slit.  The same exec. who recently fired Daryl's co-worker/friend Aldo (a manic James Woods) for insulting him.  You've seen a few movies, invisible audience, and know that Aldo surely must be a red herring, too obvious to be the real killer.

Daryll is single, with only his excitable Doberman to keep him company.   I felt sorry for the dog, barely able to move around in such a cramped apartment.  Maybe that's why he greets Daryll each night by almost dismembering him.  The janitor also faithfully video records the local newscasts featuring Tony Sokolow (Sigourney Weaver) and watches with the wide eyed excitement of a boy managing puberty.  Inevitably, Tony will interview Daryll about the murder, but the janitor is evasive to questioning, yet blatant in his desire to take the reporter out to dinner.  She's flattered, but already engaged to an Israeli Intelligence agent named Joseph (Christopher Plummer), who is established early on to be suspicious.

These elements all fit together, of course, but screenwriter Steve Tesich does not create a very suspenseful thriller.  It's difficult to tell if he was even trying.  Once we learn more about Joseph and his "cause", it seems as if part of another movie.  I did read that Tesich stitched EYEWITNESS together from two screenplays.  Perhaps he and director Peter Yates were trying for something more ambitious than another urban thriller/whodunnit. The film may have been more effective if it kept its suspects' motives a little simpler.

But the movie is worth seeing for its thoughtful characterizations, in which clearly the screenwriter was more interested.  There are big moments - Daryll piggybacks his handicapped father up the stairs, subsequently listening to his recounting a marriage counseling session.  Why is so much time spent on this? It does not further the plot, and seems entirely gratuitous.  But it is a moment of fine acting by Kenneth McMillan and Hurt.   There are numerous scenes with Steven Hill and Morgan Freeman, as Jacobs and Black, two detectives assigned to the murder. Yates gives them the usual business of stakeouts and take out food, but the film also has small moments to give the audience a better understanding of them, or at least some indication that they are human beings. "We've given up, we have to adopt," Black sighs.   It does not feel alike a throwaway bit.

Hurt, in his second or third leading role, nicely captures Daryll, a decent, somewhat cocksure young man who aspires for nothing more than a modest, comfortable life.  Hopefully with Tony by his side.  But you know that age old dilemma of a mixed socio - demographic love. Weaver continues to build her frequent cinematic persona of the sexy, intelligent, mature woman you might've wished was your tenth grade English teacher.  There is precious little showing her life at the T.V. station, of her job as a reporter.  This feels like a cheat, and the film's poster is a bit misleading. 

EYEWITNESS suffers some pacing problems, a few unintentional laughs, a climax that is both contrived and creative, and feels a bit inconsequential as both a thriller and character study, but is certainly not a waste of time.   I also liked Yates' (who directed BULLITT) in-joke of the detectives' car running out of gas just as the opportunity presents itself for a big chase.