Shia LaBeouf, picking up the voyeuristic binoculars of James Stewart, finds his Stewartish everyman charisma in a suspense pic obviously intended to be the ‘Rear Window’ of the i and youtube generation – where current technology makes privacy less a right and more an extravagance. If someone wants to watch, they will be able to watch.
Oddly no credit was given to the Academy Award nominated screenplay that makes up ‘Rear Window’, the 54’ Hitchcock classic penned by John Michael Hayes based on the short story ‘It Had to Be Murder’ by Cornel Woolrich which also revolves around a home-dependent peeping tom who suspects a neighbor of murdering women. But then again, why throw money away when the films are clearly different? I mean, Shia’s young, and Jimmy is old…and there’s no wheelchair.
Although to be fair, ‘Rear Window’ has proved inspiration for any number of flicks from De Palma’s ‘Body Double’ where De Palma made it no secret that his early filmography was made up of barely-veiled “homage’s” of Hitchcock’s work, the failed Tom Hanks comedy ‘The ‘burbs’ which, like ‘Disturbia’ also made much of the peculiarly perfect façade that suburbs can sometimes convey along with the underrated ‘Arlington Road’ and last years animated ‘Monster House’.
‘Disturbia’ hews a little closer to the plot of that classic which is admitted as much by writers, and in the age of endless remakes, it’s no surprise of the ad nauseam comparisons - so no more mention of ‘Rear Window’, I promise (as if the whippersnapper demo had any inkling of the classic forefather anyway…)
Director D.J. Caruso, mostly known for a visual but completely nonsensical style that marks ‘The Salton Sea’ and ‘Two for the Money’ settles down here with a perfectly acceptable understanding of the medium. Although he might fare slightly more than a director for hire here, he’s at least able to show us that he can propel a story forward with coherence.
Behind the camera talents aside, the real star of the film is LaBeouf who has now proven his ability to possibly take the baton from a young Tom Hanks, who was once thought of the next James Stewart…hmmm. With the enormous success of the ‘The Transformers’ film and his announced involvement in the next ‘Indiana Jones’, LaBeouf seems to be here to stay. His acting talent is competent, mostly proved in the smaller ‘A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints’, but there’s no denying the everyman via nebbish humor quality that marks his big-budge efforts that remind me more of a John Cusack circa ‘The Sure Thing’ than a Tom Hanks, who he’s usually compared to. He’s non-threatening for guys and perfectly approachable for the ladies – win, win for being on the road to stardom.
Our next Cusack stars as Kale Brecht, your everyday suburb teen, who starts the film off with a bonding trip with his father. An easy rapport is seen between the two and the gruesome prologue ends with that relationship cut short. Cut to school an unspecified time later and we find Kale appropriately sullen and detached. His emotions come rushing out through a quick punch to his Spanish teacher who chooses an unfortunate and condescending remark about what his Dad would think about Kale’s current indifference to his schoolwork.
The next scenes set up the structure of the film. Given a break by the judge, he is confined to his home with an ankle bracelet which electronically jails him around a central device in the kitchen which allows him a certain number of yards in any direction. Once he passes this specified amount, the ankle starts blinking red and he has 10 seconds to get himself back into the allowed space before the police are alerted – one particular officer taking a special pleasure in giving Kale a hard time (being the Spanish teacher’s cousin).
His Mom (Carrie-Anne Moss seguing into maternal roles already) sees him treating these first few days on house arrest as a slacker vacation so she deprives him of his XBOX live and iTunes accounts to really punish him. With absolutely nothing else to do, he resorts to people watching, pattern establishing – info that he relates to his goofy best bud Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) who remains uninterested until they spy the sexy new gal on the block (Sarah Roemer) who provides the eye-candy icing on the swimming pool cake next door.
Of sinister interest, however, lies a creepy neighbor (David Morse) who just happens to drive a dented Mustang just like the one mentioned in news reports of a murderer (the not so subtle lingering on news reports up until this point in the film let us know what to expect). It doesn’t take along, of course, before the sexy gal teams up with the two hormone-driven dudes to form a makeshift Scooby Doo mystery-solving team…without the dog.
It’s no wonder the surprise spring success of the pic as the film balances the slow burn suspense of the plot with effective-enough awkward teen romance hijinks. A few scares, a bumbling teen hero who gets the girl…what more could teens want from a Friday night at the movies? LaBeouf provides an amiable lead proving capable at being the resentful delinquent in the beginning to pining teen goofball in the middle and finally the man of action towards the climax. At this point, he’s certainly more adept at the comedy than the drama but all in due time I’m guessing…
David Morse, one of our more underrated character actors, does a good job here despite the particular obviousness of the role. The screenplay falters here where it could have taking advantage of Morse’s skills, provided the character a pathos or a reasonable motive for him not being the killer. His role in Sean Penn’s ‘The Crossing Guard’ comes to mind - but instead, from his very first scene, all doubt is removed from the audience whether this guy is or isn’t. The film certainly ends on disappointing standard slasher techniques that could easily have been avoided.
The high definition image is presented in an AVC encoded 1.85:1 transfer. The image is clean and crisp, with no graininess or dirt which is about par for a recent theatrical release – quite impressive. All special features are presented in HD which is a very nice surprise and hopefully a sign of things to come.
First off is a feature-length commentary from director D.J. Caruso and stars Shia LaBeouf and Sarah Roemer and is an expectedly fun affair which focuses less on the tech side of things and more on the group just having a good time – more a breezy once-through to have on while your focus is elsewhere. Next is a Trivia Pop-up Quiz track that would make a good coupling with the commentary which pops up various facts and trivia about the film.
A fifteen minute making of provides an easy watch along with four deleted scenes, an outtakes and bloopers reel, the music video ‘Don’t Make Me Wait’ by This World Fair a photo gallery and finally the films trailer.
While ‘Disturbia’ won’t win any awards for creativity - the film has a hero, the hero’s girl, the hero’s best friend and the villain – and the plot machinations twist and turn to the expected resolution, I found the pic to be fairly entertaining anyway with good work from the cast and a few scare set-pieces in the middle of the film that worked in building up some tension.
While it certainly won’t keep you up at night, it might at the very least cause you to remember to close your curtains before you go to bed. You never know who might be watching when those skeletons come tumbling out of the closet…
Disturbia HD DVD is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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