Movie Review: Disturbia

To outline, kid gets sentenced to a few months of house arrest. While under said arrest, he gets a little stir crazy and starts watching people in neighboring houses. While he people watches, he sees what he believes to be a murder. Now, this troublemaker needs to find a way to prove it without getting himself killed. Tell me if this begins to sound familiar. Essentially, this boils down to Rear Window, the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller that starred Jimmy Stewart. It has been dressed down and rebuilt into a movie that is carefully structured for the modern teenage audience. Fortunately, despite the familiarity of its elements, they are pieced together in a sly manner that belies the intelligence and genuine creepiness that it contains. It successfully sidesteps the pitfalls of other pseudo-remakes of recent years by actually being interesting and containing worthy performances.

Disturbia plays on our innate voyeuristic tendencies, from those who like to people watch to those who get their kicks out of reality television and invasive tales of celebrities gone awry. Take away diversionary entertainment, the television, the video games, put them in a confined place, see how long it takes before they are peering out their windows straining to see what's going on in the home next door. It is the ability to create entertainment where there was nothing previously, not that it wasn't there, but it was blocked out by more in your face diversions.

Getting the festivities off to a roaring start is a peaceful father and son outing. Kale (Shia Lebeouf) is out fishing with his father, having one of those moments of connection between generations. As they head home, they are involved in a horrific car accident, one of the most cringe inducing I have seen in some time. The timeline jumps forward, a year out from the accident, the now fatherless Kale is sullen and withdrawn and prone to getting himself in trouble. His latest outburst, punching a teacher, lands him the sentence of house arrest, and this is where the fun begins.

Disturbia is split into two distinct halves. The first half of the movie focuses on Kale and his attempts to deal with his situation. Mom, played by the underutilized Carrie-Anne Moss, cuts off the cable and his X-Box Live account, leaving him to try to find other ways to entertain himself. It doesn't take long before he notices the cute new neighbor-girl, Ashley (Sarah Roemer), even quicker, he is spied by his target. This leads to the meet-cute and romance begins to bloom. Before this gets to far, we overhear reports of a missing girl and a suspect in a 1960s era Mustang. It just so happens, that Mr. Turner (David Morse), the odd guy next door has one. The watch is on and the second half of our tale kicks in.

The second half of the film is a battle of wits between the watchers and the watched. There is no mystery over whether or not this guy is the alleged killer, Morse is in full on bad ass mode and makes no efforts to hide who he is. This is a battle of wits between Kale and his pals, and Turner's desire to get away with some nefarious acts of murder. We slip from the light comedy of the first half to ever growing tension in the second, complete with plenty of PG-13 gruesomeness, which I did not expect, yet happily welcomed.

The movie coasts on the tense direction of DJ Caruso, who injects a lively excitement into the proceedings. Combine that with the nice cinematography from Rogier Stoffers and you have a film that is nice to look at. The script from Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth has some zip to it, but is let down somewhat by the performances. Shia Lebeouf has some talent, and 2007 is set to be a big year for him (he also stars in Transformers), but he doesn't quite reach the level he needs to be at here, he does decently, but could have used a little more desperation. Sarah Roehmer holds her own in a limited role. Then there is David Morse, whose work I have really come to enjoy, he is in full on scenery chewing mode, and it works deliciously for the bad ass killer he portrays.

Bottomline. This is a nicely pieced together thriller. It may cover familiar ground, but it does so in a nice style and plays out in a strong enough manner that it can stand up and be seen. It is not destined for greatness, but it is a fun watch and better than I had been expecting.

Recommended.