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Disturbia Review
by Doom and Black Goliath
Tell that to the hillbillies in the Hill Have Eyes, or Wrong Turn, or any other "Let's mock the South" horror film!
Steven Spielberg, what wrath have thou wrought? I've read in Entertainment Weekly how you're grooming Shia LaBeouf to be the next Jesus Christ. In my opinion, Shia LaBeouf has never been in anything worthwhile. Not Even Stevens. Not Constantine And definitely not Holes. I was half hoping that Disturbia would be different, even if it is a carbon copy of the Hitchcock classic Rear Window. I mean, you really have to suck to screw up a plot like this. The master set everything up! All you have to do is not fuck it up and kill the goldfish while he's away! Unfortunately, Disturbia does not live up to any qualifications needed for a film to be, you know, a film, i.e. a plot, engaging characters, or anything remotely interesting at all. If this is any indication of the upcoming Transformers movie (Bernie Mac!), then let the rioting commence.
The movie begins with the main character (LaBeouf) is being put on house arrest for various crimes like staying out late after curfew, getting into shoving matches at school, and being more angsty than a stock character in a 13 year old's Harry Potter fanfiction. We see him bitch and moan about being fatherless (which one would assume is the root of the problem) in one scene, and for a minute you almost feel sorry for him. Then you see LaBeouf whining about no cell phone or Xbox Live and that sympathy withers away faster than an erection in winter. His mother, played by Carrie Anne Moss, doesn't really help much, generally being an unsupportive bitch to her own son. "I'm sorry dad died, but your asshole Spanish teacher didn't deserve it for desecrating him!" You can't really see her in this role after The Matrix, but whatever pays the bills. He can't run from home, he can't play Halo, and the Disney Channel hates criminals. So what's his solution to pass the time? He sets up a telescope and proceeds to watch his hottie neighbor in the swimming pool. Creepy, but effective. What ensues is a real life version of Facebook.
Shia brings to the role the wacky Disney Channel hijinks you've come to expect from 2007 (i.e. decadence, inanery and a strong desire on part of the viewer to murder the main character). Alfred Hitchcock must be rolling around in his grave. Instead of being prosecuted for being a stalker like any normal human being would be in reality, he and Ashley bond while Cho Seung-Hui lookalike Ronnie provides the comedic relief (I wonder if Disturbia will be edited for DVD?). The trio engage in a lot of zany pranks involving highly sensitive camera equipment Shia seems to get out of nowhere. Then they begin to have the sneaking suspicion the old bag of bones neighbor is actually the serial killer. After all, the news talks about a serial killer right before the camera pans over to the neighbor's garage! He must be eeeeevil.
There's some more fake-out bullshit of "How could you possibly suspect him of being a murderer even though you video record him harassing a prostitute and you should really go to the cops with this one you stupid piece of shit" that comes with the territory of ripping off a classic and dumbing it down for modern audiences. And watch as LaBeouf tries to alert the cops only to be shook off because of a previous incident involving a false alarm attributed to his ankle bracelet going off! I love it. Oh, wait, no I don't; it's hacky screenwriting you can see a fucking mile away. The best part has to be when Ronnie retrieves his cell phone from the magical trip to the killer's house gone awry, and as we're certain the killer done gone and killed Cho all good, we see the camera COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUUUUUUUUUSE! And then Shia opens the door and it's Cho...who's still alive! Best prank ever, even if it breaks continuity and makes no sense how he got there since Shia should've noticed it. Whatever. Movies starring the sidekick from Constantine don't have to make sense!
Enter the denouement. The guy IS a killer after all! Uh oh! Whatcha gonna do now?!?!!? It's a race against time as Shia and his buddy Ashley must stop the guy before he kills Trinity aka mom. Killer knocks her out and almost kills her until it's son to the rescue. Screw the ankle bracelet! He tears it off and runs to the neighbor's house, he dispatches the killer, saves mom, finds evidences of the killer's wrongdoings and he's proven right and the cops proven wrong. Happy ending, right? Yes. Because it's one of those cookie cutter piece of shit feel good movies. There's nothing cool like Rear Window's POV shots or the classic final sequence filmed entirely in POV...takes too much work. And if there's one thing this movie doesn't intend to focus on accomplishing, it's 'work'.
The guy who directed this piece of shit happens to be D.J. Caruso. No, he's not some underground hip hop producer I expect you to remember for his collaboration with Del the Funky Homosapien. No, he's a TV director known for several episodes of The Shield, including 5x08 "Kavanaugh". Yeah, who wouldn't want the thankless task of ripping off Rear Window and trying to upstage Alfred fucking Hitchcock. Maybe those guys who made the anime version of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. I will say he's gone way, way, way down since his stint directing Detective Mackey and the rest of the Strike Team. To go from Jon Kavanaugh aka Forest Whitaker and his self-raping bottle up the pussy ex-wife Gina Torres to Shia LaBeouf and a hammy rehash of a Hitchcock film with all the style of a Disney Channel original movie...let me just state this: YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. FOR POSSESSION. OF HEROIN. WITH INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE.
Other than the obvious ripoff nature of the film, what else is there to say? Not much, I guess, other than I really wonder if the screenwriters knew they were ripping off Rear Window when they were writing it, as I see they have previous filmwriting credits before this rubbish. Did they think no one was going to figure it out? "Hmm, maybe if we change the name and update the setting, no one will figure it out." "Sounds like a good idea! Cast a young rising star as the lead!" "No one will ever connect the dots!" "We're geniuses, let's get blowjobs!"
If you want to a suspense-filled film with great acting, great direction, clever misdirection and more Jimmy Stewart than you can handle...go steal Rear Window off the Internet. Disturbia would've sated if it had been aired originally on the Disney Channel as a shittier version updated for kids who can't understand the genius cinematography of Alfred Hitchcock. But no. People are pretending this is a new product, and a product worth seeing and/or existing in the first place. It's not. It's definitely fucking not.
How many drinks do I need for this to be good?: 511
Mastur-factor: 2
The Stinger: It's a stealth ripoff.
Lesson Learned: Don't remake the master.