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Disturbia Running time 1:44 Rated PG-13 ShowPlace West, ShowPlace East
Kale Brecht (Shia LaBeouf) has a bit of a problem.
Under house arrest and electronically tethered to his yard, he’s
taken to wiling away his 90 days of court-ordered purgatory by spying on
the neighbors. Fortunately for Kale, the view isn’t bad as he takes
to peeping at Ashley (Sarah Roemer), the hot new chick across the way
who’s plucky enough to turn the tables on the pervert-in-making and
his pal, Ronnie (Aaron Yoo). Soon, this trio of voyeurs is taking turns
with Kale’s high-tech binoculars and as fate would have it, they
begin to think that kindly Mr. Turner (David Morse) across the street is a
serial killer. Turner, of course, realizes he’s being watched and
he’s decided to come after them. For viewers of a certain age, D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia will sound all too
familiar, and it should, as it is an update of the Hitchcock classic Rear Window. While
screenwriters Christopher Lambert and Carl Ellsworth (Red Eye) fail to cite Hitch and his
writer John Michael Hayes as the source for their script, the similarities
are such that comparisons are inescapable. However, in the long run, the
audience Disturbia is pitched to is unlikely to know the difference between
Jimmy Stewart and Jiminy Cricket. While it would be easy to say that this is nothing
but a Window knockoff,
credit must be given to the writers and Caruso for the updates they fit
into the story. Cell phones, the Internet, and high-tech video all play a
key role in this tense cat-and-mouse game. I couldn’t help but wonder
what Hitch would have done with these sorts of toys at his disposal
(can’t you see Cary Grant text-messaging Grace Kelly?), but Caruso
exhausts a few scenarios that provide the film with its best moments. The trio of young actors all do themselves proud and
have a fine chemistry between them that helps us stick with the story when
it becomes too outlandish and makes us care for their characters.
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2007.
