Writer-director Hamlet Sarkissian's feature-film debut purports to be about crime-scene photographer Adam Trese, a man who gets sucked into the unsavory world he's supposed to chronicle. But the reality is that this movie is more about the director showing off his film school technique than it's about dark truth. Sarkissian has a flashy and fluid technique, including hyperkinetic crosscutting and long tracking shots, but the flat, predictable characters and stiff dialogue keeps the film from becoming the next Seven or Blood Simple.
Worse yet, Camera's gratuitous conclusion would have benefited from further development. The only actor to distinguish himself is Cully Fredricksen as a bad cop with a taste for understatement. All of which leaves us, even in an arena where expectations are low, with a film of high gloss and low substance.