Avis Metacritic

This is a chronicle of two men — writer and subject — obsessed with the theme of spying on unsuspecting, innocent people who have no idea their private lives are on display.

Too often, Kane and Koury don’t seem to trust entirely what they have, and they needlessly pad Voyeur with miniatures, re-enactments and an overall light, playful tone. It all seems at odds with the story’s fundamentally disturbing — yet gripping — content.

[A] fascinating and frustrating documentary.

Voyeur leaves its viewers with more questions about what happened in the Manor House and what it meant than they’ll have coming in. If that’s hardly the note of finality that many will want or expect, it’s the aspect of the film that perhaps feels the most authentic and honest.

By the end of this captivating if unsettling movie, Foos’s unpunished criminality notwithstanding, you’ll have plenty to chew on about the nature of the relationship between journalist and subject.

An article, a book, and now a film, Talese’s fascination with Foos’s voyeurism still hasn’t resulted in anything like rigorous journalism. The movie, though, at least lets us be the witnesses to something unsettling rather than just asking us to take some dude’s word for it. That means these cameramen are journalists.

Choosing not to delve too deeply into the mind of either man — or to question Mr. Talese’s journalistic ethics and less-than-scrupulous fact-checking — the directors are content to mostly watch as each vies for control of the movie, and his legacy. It’s an entertainingly desperate joust, playing out beneath defiantly unattractive lighting.

Voyeur is framed as the story of one observer trying to clarify another, but Kane and Koury lose sight of their own film, which is really a story about two men so desperate to hear the sound of their own voices that they deluded themselves into thinking they had something to say. Voyeur falls right into their trap.

By its close, Voyeur spouts some lines about how we all like to watch, and we are left with three documents of the Voyeur’s Motel and no closer to knowing why we should care.

It's hard to come away from the film feeling anything but disdain and a twinge of embarrassment toward Gay Talese.