Jason C
Reviewer

      Three brisk steps behind you on a busy city sidewalk or just around the corner in a dark alley after dusk, Bill could be waiting to follow you. In a wickedly clever story of voyeuristic splendor that would make Alfred Hitchcock proud, Christopher Nolan's “Following” tells the story of Bill, a wannabe writer who learns about human nature by stalking strangers in London.
 
      Nolan excellently juxtaposes a neo-noir crime story reminiscent of Hitchcock's “Rear Window” and the black and white style of James Cagney's finest 1930s films, proving that his second feature, the widely-acclaimed “Memento”, wasn't just a fluke. “Following” shares “Memento”'s lack of a straight chronology and comes across as if Nolan wrote each scene onto a notecard, threw them into a fan and then assembled the movie in the most random order imaginable. Characters lie bleeding on pavement an hour before audiences are introduced to who could have committed the violence, and an hour is a long time in this film, which has the body and depth of a two-hour feature but runs only 70 minutes.
 
      The characters are dark and their actions even darker. Bill begins to follow Cobb only to find out that Cobb had been following him. Cobb, a successful thief, assumed Bill was a policeman, but, instead, Bill wants to be his apprentice. The two visit homes, messing with people's lives in such ways as throwing a pair of panties into the laundry bin so when the couple gets home, the woman will assume her husband was having a lurid affair. This could be a movie in itself, two men thieving their way through London, but this is just where the plot really begins.
 
      “Following” does its best to immerse us into the chase of following the strangers and then proceeds to perplex even the most apt cinemagoers as it leads viewers into the twists and turns of a life of crime, while jumping back and forth between present, past and future until the film's chronology seems no more lucent than a black and white blur. Seeing the movie only once leaves many unanswered questions. This is where the short film length, coupled with the quick-paced script, allows repeated viewings. And for those too lazy to see it a third time, the DVD offers the film in its chronological order to clarify any plot misconceptions.
 
      The film stars Jeremy Theobald as the stalker and Alex Haw as the stalkee, and neither actor made a movie before or since. The acting is strong but sub-par to Guy Pearce or Joe Pantoliano in “Memento”, which also features a lead cast of two men flanked by a woman used simply for added plot twists and sexual undertones throughout the film.
 
      What makes “Following” great isn't the acting. Nor is it the writing, which is brilliant and wickedly clever but rather confusing. Instead, it is the tone that makes viewers want to join the characters in each of their misdeeds and fill in the good guy, whoever that happens to be at the moment, of the other side's deceit and treachery. “Following” grabs viewers at the start and lures them into the dark world of London before tossing them around and throwing them out after a brief encounter.