Movie Review: Paranoiak

FILM REVIEW: DISTURBIA

By Michael Wilmington

Chicago Tribune Movie Critic

2 stars

When you're writing or directing a suspense movie, and you borrow heavily from Alfred Hitchcock, it's sometimes at your peril.

Take the new teen thriller "Disturbia," in which Shia LaBeouf plays a troubled suburban kid under house arrest who suspects his next-door neighbor (David Morse) is a serial killer. Directed by D. J. Caruso ("The Salton Sea"), with all the gaudy gadgetry and Hitchcockian models at his disposal, it's a movie full of high-tech shocks, suburban high school comedy (of a sub-John Hughes variety) and violent suspense set-pieces. It's fairly well-made, in a shallow but sometimes scintillating way, and youthful stars LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer and Aaron Yoo are watchable and lively. But it didn't work too well for me, and one of the reasons is that I'd already seen an older, better version of this story: its prime source, Hitchcock's 1954 "Rear Window."

"Disturbia" - a pretty lame title by the way - begins with a fatal car crash in which LaBeouf's Kale loses his father and gains a trauma. It continues with the disturbed Kale's assault of his insensitive high school Spanish teacher and with the judge putting Kale under house arrest in his mom's suburban home. To kill the boredom and increased by his mother's prohibition on video games, Kale - who seems pretty hardy and resilient for a kid traumatized by tragedy - begins spying on their neighbors with binoculars and video cameras. Eventually he comes to suspect beefy, quiet Mr. Turner (Morse) of being a local serial killer, specializing in slaughtering gullible young women.

Now we're in "Rear Window" territory, and Kale's voyeuristic game draws in his techno-happy best pal Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) and the sexy new girl next door, Ashley (Sarah Roemer), who doesn't mind being watched. As the evidence mounts, Caruso and his screenwriters (Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth) begin to pull out all the stops, sneaking Ronnie over to Turner's house with a Camcorder (the movie's best scene) and putting both Ashley and Kale's mom, Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss), the sudden target of Mr. Turner's dangerous charms, in grave peril. Mysterious bloodstains, disappearances and trash bags that may contain dismembered bodies pop up, and Kale begins to strain at his chains. But every time he tries to investigate, his ankle monitor buzzes the local surly cop Gutierrez (Jose Pablo Cantillo), a nasty relative of Kale's teacher victim. Finally, as you'd suspect, everything hits a violent climax. Or, in fact, several.

The obvious inspiration here is "Rear Window," which was based on a Cornell Woolrich short story and has a very similar plot: photographer Jimmy Stewart, holed up in his upstairs apartment with a broken leg, spies on his neighbors across a Manhattan apartment courtyard and becomes convinced that one of those co-dwellers (dour Raymond Burr) murdered his wife. But comparisons like this are probably something the makers of "Disturbia" don't want us to make, since "Disturbia," for all its glitz and gadgets, is so markedly inferior in everything but teen appeal. "Disturbia's" makers would argue, somewhat plausibly, that they're aiming for a different audience. They barely even mention "Rear Window" in the press book, where it's insisted that screenwriter Christopher Landon's main inspiration for the script came from observing real-life suburbia. (BEGIN ITALICS, Sure., END ITALICS)Caruso's direction has lots of pace and zip, and cinematographer Rogier Stoffers' lighting is the last word in high-tech flash. LaBeouf has camera smarts, but he was much better in the more street-savvy "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints," and his slug-it-out abilities with the 6'4" Morse and others are not to be believed. Morse, a fine actor with a simmering presence, is generally wasted. So, by the way, is "Rear Window's" plot. And the only good thing about the title "Disturbia" is that now nobody can ever use it again. Of course, there might be a "Disturbia 2," but why look on the bad side?

"Disturbia"

Directed by D. J. Caruso; screenplay by Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth; photographed by Rogier Stoffers; edited by Jim Page; music by Geoff Zanelli; production design by Tom Southwell; produced by Joe Medjuck, E. Bennett Walsh and Jackie Marcus. A Paramount Pictures release. Running time: 1:44. MPAA rating: PG-13 (sequences of terror and violence and for some sensuality).

Kale - Shia LaBeouf

Mr. Turner - David Morse

Ashley - Sarah Roemer

Julie - Carrie-Anne Moss

Ronnie - Aaron Yoo

Officer Gutierrez - Jose Pablo Cantillo

Daniel Brecht - Matt Craven