Jeffrey Dean Morgan Has Still Got It

I’ve kept watching The Walking Dead: Dead City for one reason only: Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The guy oozes charisma, seems genuinely decent, and owns a freakin’ candy store with Paul Rudd. His role as Negan on The Walking Dead feels like both a blessing and a curse: it’s given him nearly a decade of steady work on a once-popular series, but at this point, it’s starting to feel like an albatross dragging down his career. He is the franchise now, or what’s left of it, and each episode seems to drain just a little more life out of him. Negan is weary and bone-tired these days, and honestly, Morgan plays him a little too well.

After this week’s episode, which I half-watched while making dinner, I felt an overwhelming urge to see the man in something halfway decent again, just to remember what he’s capable of. I recalled that a couple of months ago, during the Jack Quaid omnipresence tour (he also starred in Novocaine and Companion this year), the two The Boys co-stars teamed up for a low-budget two-hander. It got a token theatrical release, but clearly, it was designed to find its audience on digital and streaming.

Honestly, that’s exactly where it belongs. Neighborhood Watch is a small, character-driven film with zero flash, and that’s part of its charm. It’s two solid, reliable actors doing solid, reliable work. And it’s just nice to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan again without that damn leather jacket.

Quaid plays Simon McNally, a mentally ill man — a paranoid schizophrenic — who hears voices, has outbursts when overstimulated, and can’t keep a steady job. One afternoon, walking home from yet another failed interview, Simon witnesses a woman being abducted and tossed into the back of a van. He reports it to the police, but they dismiss him as delusional. So he turns to a neighbor, Ed Deerman (JDM), a disgraced former campus security officer who lost his job for taking it way too seriously.

It’s an unworkable partnership at first: Ed is a dick, and Simon’s a nutcase. But as these things go, they slowly grow on each other. Simon has the conviction, Ed has the skills, and they’re both desperate for something resembling purpose.

Directed by Duncan Skiles and written by freshman scribe Sean Farley, there’s nothing flashy or groundbreaking about the film. Neighborhood Watch is a simple story with ambitions as modest as its budget. It probably took a few weeks to shoot and cost somewhere south of $5 million, but it’s a satisfying little low-life diversion with some sharp performances (Malin Akerman also has a tiny role), and best of all, not a barbed-wire baseball bat in sight.