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Poor, misunderstood Kale. After his father dies in a horrific car accident, the distraught teen punches out his antagonizing Spanish teacher and is placed under house arrest for the entire summer. The good news is that a gorgeous new schoolmate has just moved in next door, and he’s got a powerful pair of binoculars to keep a close eye on her. The bad news is that he believes his other neighbor is a serial killer, and he might just be right.
If parts of the premise to “Disturbia” sound familiar, that’s because it’s based on Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” (1954), in which James Stewart’s L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies and Grace Kelly’s Lisa Fremont correctly labeled one of his neighbors as a murderer while Jeff was confined to his apartment. (It was also the plot of an episode of “The Simpsons” in which Bart broke his leg and suspected Flanders of being a murderer.)
Not surprisingly, D.J. Caruso’s “Disturbia” doesn’t come close to the quality or level of suspense offered by Hitchcock. After Kale (Shia LaBeouf) befriends the hottie next door, Ashley (Sarah Roemer), the two conspire with Kale’s friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) to investigate whether the other neighbor (played with chilling coldness by David Morse) is the murder suspect on television news reports. Danger ensues, and there’s enough here to keep us interested until the painfully predictable conclusion.
Although we like Kale and LeBeouf does a good job of keeping the audience involved in the story, it’s when Caruso abandons Kale’s point of view that the film gets into trouble. In “Rear Window” we only saw the story through Jeff’s perspective, and without the aid of technology the scene in which Lisa is in the murderer’s apartment is one of the best in Hitchcock’s canon.
In contrast, when Ronnie investigates suspected murderer Robert Turner’s garage, he is carrying a cell phone and small digital camera to allow Kale to know exactly what’s happening. The added information does a notable disservice to the suspense by allowing us to see and hear what’s happening. If Kale couldn’t keep an eye on Ronnie the scene would have more tension because the fear of the unknown is very often more striking than the comfort of knowledge.
With a number of sequences that are a clear homage to Hitchcock, Caruso pays ample respect to the man whose films have enabled this movie to exist. But let’s be honest: comparing a modern thriller with few aspirations to a Hitchcock classic when he was on the cusp of his greatest creative period (during which he made “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “Psycho” and “The Birds”) can only lead to unsatisfying foregone conclusions.
But even on its own terms “Disturbia” is not a success. Although parts of the film are an engaging vision of middle-class boredom in suburban America, most scenes fall into the all too familiar vein of typical thrillers, right down to the random spewing of blood and gratuitous shots of Roemer (a former model) in a bikini. This may be a remake of one of Hitchcock’s finest, but the story elements seem borrowed from a tacky ‘80s horror flick.
If this is the “Rear Window” of the 21st century, troubling times lay ahead.
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