...a decent thriller that follows the genre pretty closely, although I wish it hadn't concluded in such an obvious manner.
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Note: In the following HD DVD joint review, Jason Vargo, Dean Winkelspecht, and John Puccio all comment on the film, with John also doing the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Thoughts.
The Film According to Jason:
"Disturbia" has been compared to one of the great suspense films of all time, Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window." Both deal with a confined character spying on neighbors and a romantic interest being involved. However, where "Rear Window" decided to confine Jimmy Stewart's L. B. Jefferies to a wheelchair in his apartment for the duration of the film, "Disturbia" allows its young protagonist Kale (Shia LaBeouf) to wander around relatively unteathered…unless we count the electronic bracelet attached to his ankle.
After being in a horrific car crash and watching his father die in front of him, Kale withdraws into himself. He isn't concerned with school, so much so that when a Spanish teacher uses his father in a reprimand, Kale hits the teacher in the face. Because of his outburst, the boy is sentenced to three months house arrest. If he ventures beyond a certain electronic perimeter, he has ten seconds before the cops are called. After his mother (Carrie-Anne Moss) disconnects his television, Xbox Live and iTunes subscription, he starts to watch his neighbors: The school-age kids watching porn, his new neighbor-girl (Sarah Roemer), and a man who enjoys his privacy (David Morse). Is what Kale sees through his binoculars his imagination…or something worse?
I'll be perfectly up front about this: I have loved "Rear Window" since the first time I watched it in film class. A charismatic and immensely likable leading man in Stewart, the beautiful Grace Kelly and a fantastic plot that stayed true to itself through the film. When the first trailers for "Disturbia" came out, I pegged it as a "Rear Window" clone. On that note, I wasn't wild about the film. How could you remake one of the best thrillers of all time, let alone with a kid from a Disney Channel TV show? "Disturbia" does have its share of problems, but the best thing the movie has in its favor is that it doesn't try to be "Rear Window." It's not a remake or a re-imagining; "Disturbia" wants to be its own movie from start to finish, although it finds itself hampered by comparisons to the Hitchcock classic.
The first half hour of the film is set up in the grand thriller tradition. Kale, and the audience, are taught the places he can't go and he even learns the consequences of leaving his house with a visit from the cops. Remember this, because it is as crucial for the audience to take note of this scene as it is for Kale. More than that, though, it lures us into a false sense of security. After all, the home is supposed to be the safest place in the world. If a kid isn't safe there, where can he go?
One of the problems with the film is a bit perplexing, especially in our technological age. If Julie, Kale's mother, has blocked his Xbox Live account as well as access to iTunes, wouldn't it also stand to reason she's turned off his Internet access? At first it seems like a plot hole, but consider the following: the electronic monitoring device runs through the home phone line. If (and this is a big if) Kale's computer is running on a dial-up service, then the phone line can't be disconnected. It's admittedly a small piece of a large puzzle, but in a genre where everything should add up in the end, this is one piece that doesn't.
The two-hour running time of "Disturbia" tends to drag around the middle. At one point during a garage invasion, I was silently hoping the cops would find what Kale believed was there and the movie would finish. However, it kept going. Thankfully, the end of the film picks up-though it does abandon it's thriller "Rear Window" roots. Whereas the climax of the Hitchcock film is all thriller (no real violence), the ending of "Disturbia" is pure violence. Running, chasing, weapons, yelling…. And that's where "Disturbia" lost me as a viewer. It falls into a standard, generic, movie-of-the-week formula when it could have done something more, something better. Part of the charm of "Rear Window" was watching Jefferies WATCH Lisa (Kelly) in another apartment building and not being able to help her.
"Disturbia," on the scale of 1 to 10, rates a very marginal 6. It's not a remake, yet it feels like a story we've seen before . . . and better. This movie is going to be compared for many years with "Rear Window." And any film in that comparison is going to come out on the short end of the stick. 6/10
The Film According to Dean:
Shia LaBeouf has been on a roll recently. Most viewers will recall seeing him first in Michael Bay's "Transformers," but it was 2007's "Disturbia" that first allowed the young actor to shine without any special effects or bigger-named actors to upstage him.
"Disturbia" tells the tale of a young man, Kale (LaBeouf), who has seen his father die in a car accident and is now forced into a long boring summer after earning house arrest for punching his Spanish teacher. Kale first finds problems in passing time, but soon finds that there are a lot of interesting happenings in the neighborhood around him. He finds a pair of binoculars are his new best friend, and they allow him to view and discover many intriguing things about the people who populate his neighborhood. However, it is his beautiful new neighbor Ashley (Sarah Roemer) that catches his interest the most. She sunbathes around the swimming pool in a bikini and dances in her underwear in front of her window. This all catches Kale's interest and he soon finds a friendship with the pretty young girl after she visits his house for seclusion from her parents.
Kale's mother Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss) and his best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) are the only people besides Ashley that Kale sees during his long days. He increasingly spends time spying on his neighbors, and one night he witnesses a neighbor, Mr. Turner (David Morse), driving a dented blue Mustang into his garage. A description fitting the car was previously reported on the television after a woman disappeared and Kale begins to believe that Mr. Turner is the serial killer that the authorities have been unable to find. His suspicions heat up when Mr. Turner brings home a call girl and mysterious happenings begin around the Turner household. Kale, Ashley, and Ronnie begin to spend more time monitoring the activities of Mr. Turner and attempt to gather evidence to show that Turner is indeed a serial killer and that Kale had witnessed the call girl's murder the previous night.
With a number of apparent Hitchcockian influences, "Disturbia" is a slow-building thriller that teases and entertains until it finally reveals its villain and the grisly horrors of the serial killer's environment. With similar themes to Hitchcock's "Rear Window" and featuring musical cues, soundtrack usage, and camera movements that should be familiar to fans of the legendary director, "Disturbia's" director D.J. Caruso pays homage to the master of the thriller and crafts an effective and entertaining picture.
"Disturbia" is an entertaining film that dances around the topics of sexuality and builds sexual tension to support the tension surrounding the possible serial killer living next door. There have been a glut of thrillers and chillers released in the past couple of years and many of them have become horribly dull and repetitious. D.J. Caruso moves filmmaking back a few decades and slows down the pace, using the camera's eye to become a voyeur through the binoculars the main character uses. Hints of horror are flashed throughout the first two acts, and it isn't until the final showdown between Kale and the serial killer that anything violent actually occurs. Tension between Ashley and her parents and Kale and his mother help to build tension, as does an unfriendly relationship between Kale and some neighborhood boys. These moments are meant to keep the viewer on edge and unable to settle into a level of comfort.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]21498[/release]