Watching the Detectives

Watching the Detectives is a 2007 romantic comedy film written and directed by Paul Soter. The film stars Cillian Murphy as the film geek owner of an independent video rental store whose life is turned upside down when femme fatale Lucy Liu comes into his life. The film, which played film festivals in 2007, did not secure distribution to theaters and instead went straight to DVD. The film opens on a dark film noir black and white scene where a 1940s style detective shoots a villain—for trying to return a late video. The lights come up, revealing that we are watching a commercial for... Gumshoe Video, and the detective is Neil , the store's owner, who is premiering the ad for friends at a party at his modest cinephile video store. His girlfriend Denise , who appears in the commercial, does not show up at the celebration. The next day, Neil meets Denise at a restaurant, but before he goes to the table, he gets a waiter to spill a glass of water on her, just to watch her overreact. She is not amused by the prank, and tells him he needs to get his life together instead of just watching movies and playing immature games.
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