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Disturbia (2007)

Director: D.J. Caruso

Time Out rating

Average user rating

20 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Audience demographics and business imperatives now dictate that every classic Hollywood movie be remade for 12 to 25-year-olds. Hack director DJ Caruso’s slick, adolescent reworking of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’ fuses John Hughes-style teen comedy with the darker suburban paranoia of Joe Dante’s ‘The ’burbs’. You’ll jump as if you’ve had electrodes attached to your sensitive parts; but when your nerve endings stop tingling, your brain won’t remember a thing.

Having lost his father in a road accident and punched out his Spanish teacher, mixed-up 17-year-old Kale (Shia LaBeouf) is fitted with an electronic tag that is activated if he strays more than 100 yards from his home. With the help of his nerdy tech-wizard pal Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), who also gets to do most of the legwork, Kale rigs up surveillance equipment and spies on his neighbours. Of particular interest is the new girl-next-door, Ashley (Sarah Roemer), but also the secretive Mr Turner (David Morse), who Kale becomes convinced is a serial killer.

The screenplay by Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth (‘Red Eye’) works best in the quieter, creepier scenes, where the threat is implied through hushed dialogue or telling (returned) looks. Sadly, the subsequent switch from playful voyeurism to life-threatening violence is abrupt, brutal and unconvincing. Also, it’s hard to work up the same emotional interest in three standard-issue teens (and Carrie-Anne Moss’s harassed mother) that one could invest in the urbane, wheelchairbound James Stewart and the glamorous Grace Kelly. That said, David Morse is physically and psychologically terrifying, and Caruso efficiently cranks up the tension and jeopardy during the extended finale.

Author: Nigel Floyd 2007-09-10 16:53:34

Time Out London Issue 1934: September 12-18 2007

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User reviews of this film

sage o'the 'hood said...

Posted on Sep 15 2007 10:29 Shame really - not a patch on previous iterations of the same thing

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yduric said...

Posted on Sep 14 2007 23:21 I tend to agree with the latest user (ian): the idea of remaking 'Rear Window' was interesting and the first half of the film worked, but after that, how disappointing and cliché the film became is unbelievable. It seemed that the director and the screenwriter had totally ran out of imagination: the second half of the film is godddamn so CONVENTIONAL, especially the overlong finale in the serial killer's house, this is something we have already seen at least a thousand times in this type of film, it felt like watching some quickly written B-grade horror film.

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ian said...

Posted on Sep 14 2007 10:20 The film works well until it goes OTT at the end. The first half has a lot of nicely underplayed stuff going on, and is believable, but then it gets silly. They didn't have the courage of their convictions at the end, and go for gore, when it simply isn't needed.

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stew said...

Posted on Sep 09 2007 17:14 not to be missed, fantastic thriller, best of the year.

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danny said...

Posted on Sep 08 2007 21:33 classic thriller loved it brill get and see this

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