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Ten years ago, Sean Veil (Lee Evans) was accused of the murder of a
family, and he was only not convicted because of a formality ... thing is,
he didn't do it either, and only became a suspect because he was in the
wrong place at the wrong time, and according to profiler Seger (Ian
McNeice), his profile fitted that of a killer 100%. Since then, Veil has
been filming every move he made 24/7, just to make sure he can never be
accused of another murder again, as he presumes they are still out there
to get him ... and they are, too, Seger still tries to pin the 10 year old
murders on him, and so does detective Emerick (Sean McGinley), the
arresting officer from back then. Eventually, Veil finds an unlikely ally
though, Katie (Rachael Stirling), the sister/daughter of Veil's supposed
victims, who's pretty much the only person in this world to believe he's
innocent. Too late though it seems, as suddenly detective Emerick comes up
with a five year old murder he wants to pin on Veil, and weirdly enough,
the tapes concerning the time of the murder are gone from his meticulous
archives. Veil manages to give the police the slip, and he buys himself
just enough time to fake the tapes showing his whereabouts five years ago
- but when he shows these to the police, the fake's soon uncovered, and he
is accused of having murdered proviler Seger just the other day ... but
forging the tapes eventually leads to his release, because it's soon
proven that he made these tapes exactly when Seger was murdered ... Back
home, Veil finds Seger very much alive but tied to a chair, and Katie
threatening Seger because she believes he has killed her folks, having
found the murder weapon among his things. Finally, Seger reveals the
truth: He didn't kill Katie's family, Katie's dad did, and he knew that
all along, but couldn't admit to it because back in the day, it would have
cost him his reputation if anyone else but Veil was the culprit. Now Katie
goes bonkers, shoots Seger, then Emerick who just stops by (and who really
believed Veil was the guilty party), then herself - but not before burning
all of Veil's tapes on which Seger reveals her father is the actual killer
... and when the police arrives, it looks they have finally pinned him for
a triple murder (none of which he has committed) - until he reveals he
hasn't only recorded the whole incident on webcam but also sent a copy of
it to the newspapers. Finally, Veil's name is cleared, but will he ever
be able to stop recording himself?
Considering its basic concept, this is a clever, even
fascinating paranoia thriller, nevertheless it is also far from a perfect
film: On a narrative level, it contains a few too many plotholes to remain
convincing throughout, even if some of them are cleverly disguised and
only reveal themselves retrospectively, on a directorial level, it6 is
tried a bit too hard to at the same time look cool and glossy and make the
film's point again and again - the point being there's a man who films
himself all of the time - to an extent where it gets ridiculous, and
actingwise, Rachael Stirling's rather central performance is at times so
hammy it's totally losing me. That all said, Freeze Frame is still not a bad
film, just far from perfect and not even as good as it could have been.
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