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Review: 'Disturbia' Is For The 'Burbs
Film Violent Update Of Hitchcock Formula
POSTED: 6:11 am CDT April 13, 2007
'Disturbia' (PG-13)
(out of four) To think what Alfred Hitchcock could achieve with a PG rating, it's stunning how little director D.J. Caruso can do with a PG-13 (which, given the number of stabbings, baseball bat attacks and bloody car crashes, should easily be an R) in "Disturbia," an obvious attempt to revamp, reinvent and modernize -- look kids, iPods! -- the Hitchcock formula. Fans of "Rear Window" will recognize the setup almost instantly: Kale (Shia LaBeouf) is trapped in his home, saddled by a leg weighed down by an electronic monitor. Still struggling with a personal tragedy, Kale has grown temperamental and rude, and as he lashes out one day at his high school Spanish teacher, he's remanded to three months of house arrest. For those unclear as to what house arrest means, a character helpfully evokes memories of Martha Stewart's run-in with the SEC. Played with an annoyed -- and thus believable -- ambivalence by LaBeouf, Kale considers his imprisonment a joke, cracking Stewart jokes and turning to every distraction in the teenager handbook. He plays online video games until his mom (Carrie-Anne Moss, in a stunningly limited, one-dimensional role) shuts off the service. He turns to downloading music until she disconnects his iTunes account. He even sets to gorging on sugar -- namely Twinkies and balls of peanut butter dipped in chocolate -- until his stomach decides it's had enough. Increasingly isolated, he turns to a more traditional tool -- binoculars -- and a more traditional distraction: Eavesdropping, spying and gawking at his neighbors, particularly the young, blonde Ashley (Sarah Roemer) who just moved in next door and who conveniently wanders out to sit on her roof, inviting all wandering eyes. The drama, of course, emanates from the home of Mr. Turner (David Morse), where strange nightly happenings -- a bloody dented fender on the car, blood splattered on an upstairs window, strange bags being carried in and out -- lead Kale and Ashley and wacky best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) to organize a revolving stakeout. Yet what's most revealing about "Disturbia' is its inability to follow the slow, methodical, claustrophobic Hitchcock formula. Only once in my life have I heard a woman scream uncontrollably in a movie theater, and it was at the pivotal moment in "Rear Window," where a man being spied on across the street suddenly turns to look back into the camera -- back at us, leering from afar. In "Disturbia," Caruso pulls out that joker from the deck less than halfway through the game, opting out of any sort of psychological suspense and instead relying on a parade of race-against-the-clock sequences all dependent on such things as digital video cameras, text messages and even a menacing stroll through a suburban Home Depot ("he's shopping for shovels," Ashley whispers as she takes photos with her cell).The music swells and the camera cuts away from the characters -- something unimaginable in "Rear Window" -- to show us things happening elsewhere. "Distrubia" may be louder, flashier and bloodier; it's also as mediocre as thrillers come nowadays.No, no one screamed this time in the movie theater, and there wasn't much need to. Thanks to the music, we were already cued in what to feel and when. Thanks to the violence, we are forced more to cover our eyes than lead forward into a realistic situation.No screaming, just a few folks walking out early.
(out of four) To think what Alfred Hitchcock could achieve with a PG rating, it's stunning how little director D.J. Caruso can do with a PG-13 (which, given the number of stabbings, baseball bat attacks and bloody car crashes, should easily be an R) in "Disturbia," an obvious attempt to revamp, reinvent and modernize -- look kids, iPods! -- the Hitchcock formula. Fans of "Rear Window" will recognize the setup almost instantly: Kale (Shia LaBeouf) is trapped in his home, saddled by a leg weighed down by an electronic monitor. Still struggling with a personal tragedy, Kale has grown temperamental and rude, and as he lashes out one day at his high school Spanish teacher, he's remanded to three months of house arrest. For those unclear as to what house arrest means, a character helpfully evokes memories of Martha Stewart's run-in with the SEC. Played with an annoyed -- and thus believable -- ambivalence by LaBeouf, Kale considers his imprisonment a joke, cracking Stewart jokes and turning to every distraction in the teenager handbook. He plays online video games until his mom (Carrie-Anne Moss, in a stunningly limited, one-dimensional role) shuts off the service. He turns to downloading music until she disconnects his iTunes account. He even sets to gorging on sugar -- namely Twinkies and balls of peanut butter dipped in chocolate -- until his stomach decides it's had enough. Increasingly isolated, he turns to a more traditional tool -- binoculars -- and a more traditional distraction: Eavesdropping, spying and gawking at his neighbors, particularly the young, blonde Ashley (Sarah Roemer) who just moved in next door and who conveniently wanders out to sit on her roof, inviting all wandering eyes. The drama, of course, emanates from the home of Mr. Turner (David Morse), where strange nightly happenings -- a bloody dented fender on the car, blood splattered on an upstairs window, strange bags being carried in and out -- lead Kale and Ashley and wacky best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) to organize a revolving stakeout. Yet what's most revealing about "Disturbia' is its inability to follow the slow, methodical, claustrophobic Hitchcock formula. Only once in my life have I heard a woman scream uncontrollably in a movie theater, and it was at the pivotal moment in "Rear Window," where a man being spied on across the street suddenly turns to look back into the camera -- back at us, leering from afar. In "Disturbia," Caruso pulls out that joker from the deck less than halfway through the game, opting out of any sort of psychological suspense and instead relying on a parade of race-against-the-clock sequences all dependent on such things as digital video cameras, text messages and even a menacing stroll through a suburban Home Depot ("he's shopping for shovels," Ashley whispers as she takes photos with her cell).The music swells and the camera cuts away from the characters -- something unimaginable in "Rear Window" -- to show us things happening elsewhere. "Distrubia" may be louder, flashier and bloodier; it's also as mediocre as thrillers come nowadays.No, no one screamed this time in the movie theater, and there wasn't much need to. Thanks to the music, we were already cued in what to feel and when. Thanks to the violence, we are forced more to cover our eyes than lead forward into a realistic situation.No screaming, just a few folks walking out early. Distributed by Internet Broadcasting. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
