On the surface, respected accountant Terry Allen (Peter Krause) has a good life. He and his beautiful wife Marla (Kari Matchett) are on the verge of purchasing their first home, their love for one another so vibrant and strong it could probably survive anything.

Which is a good thing, especially after Terry is laid off from his job putting their mortgage application in serious jeopardy. But this is nothing compared to post-9/11 paranoia that starts assaulting Marla’s formerly liberal and peace-loving husband after Muslim student named Gabe Hassan (Egyptian actor Khaled Abol Naga) moves in next door. The combination of these two things starts eating away at the accountant’s sanity, Terry even going so far as to call the FBI and speak to an Agent Hillary (Richard Schiff) about his new neighbor’s odd nocturnal activities.

But the response this out-of-work New York number-cruncher gets from authorities and the support he gets from his wife does not meet his expectations making Terry feel as if he needs to take matters into his own hands. Soon he’s breaking into Hassan’s apartment and going through his things without regards to his neighbor’s rights, his finds only fueling his ever-growing paranoia.

The independent thriller Civic Duty is an intriguing and absorbing post-9/11 drama that can’t help but get under a person’s skin. Watching Terry Allen fall apart at the seams is an eerily chilling thing, Krause tapping into feelings and suspicions so many were feeling in the wake of those heinous September terrorist attacks. The film weaves in the media hyperbole surrounding these events magnificently, the whole picture bristling with obsessive tensions impossible to not relate in at least some small part to.

The thing is, I can’t exactly say this Rear Window meets Arlington Road adventure works quite as well overall as I would have liked it to. Jeff Renfroe’s (One Point O) direction is solid if unexceptional. Like so many young independent filmmakers he adores moving the camera around far more than he needs to, the jittery nature of so much of this distracting from the haunting internal dramatics going on at the story’s center.

Still, freshman screenwriter Andrew Joiner has written a solid script full of intriguing twists and turns that, while somewhat unsurprising, seldom dips into cliché or familiarity. Matchett, Schiff and Naga all contribute solid support, while Krause is downright exceptional as the nondescript accountant suddenly falling into media-fueled paranoia. Those who loved him on HBO’s Six Feet Under are going to be blow away by his performance here, the actor holding the screen brilliantly making Terry’s fall from grace absorbing, unsettling and at times even downright terrifying.

By the time things reached their refreshingly ambiguous conclusions I was so fully absorbed in what was going on I almost didn’t care about the nonsensical nature of some of the bits and pieces. The film packs a pretty darn powerful punch, Civic Duty asking me to ponder questions and motives I didn’t even realize I possessed.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)