The movie opens with artificially emotional scene with Kale (Shia) and his father on a fishing trip. On the ride home there is a sudden and terrible car accident in which Kale loses his father. A year later we see an emotionally troubled Kale, lashing out at an "evil" spanish teacher, who for reasons the movie does not show, loves to harass Kale. This is all in service to establishing sympathy for our main character. How do we get him under house arrest but not have him be a nasty criminal? Well, he's misunderstood, of course. One of the main problems here is, unfortunate parental death aside, we don't have a likable main character. Kale is bratty and completely self centered. His mother lost her husband, but he makes life even more difficult fo her, nice kid.
This is all set-up to get to the main point, our main character a captive in his own home begins to watch his neighbors, for lack of anything better to do. After we get some incredibly brief and uninteresting observations of his neighbors, we get to the creepy guy, who is revealed (way too soon, in my opinion) to be a serial killer. The way this movie reveals the creepy neighbor's actions, we never have a doubt that he is a killer. Kind of a mistake compared to Rear Window. That movie had you wondering if it was all in the main character's mind, almost until the last few minutes of the movie.
Oh, and Kale he's a bit of a perv. It's surprising that the love interest in the movie, a new girl that just moved in next door, ends up falling for Kale, knowing he has been spying on her as she sun bathes, laying in bed and who knows what else. I guess with cell phone cameras, Youtube and the like, girls of her generation are flattered by peeping toms.
There's a lot to nit-pick here, but there's an overlying problem with the movie that they should have seen before it was done. We don't ever get a real sense that Kale is restricted to his home in any way. Sure, the police will come if he leaves his home but the main character in Rear Window was physically restricted to his home. There is much more tension possible in that situation. When the eventual confrontation comes with the serial killer, although the odds are against him, Kale at least has the ability to defend him self and even better, to take action. I have a feeling that these days, people would not want to see Shia LaBeouf stuck in a wheelchair, powerless as the killer comes to exact his revenge. We want our heroes to get in there and wipe the floor with the bad guy. Even if the bad guy, in every way out matches the puny Shia, our main character will get it done somehow.
I can't really recommend Disturbia, there's too much wrong with it and there is long list of movies that are shooting for the same thing and hit the mark much better. I suppose if you are under house arrest and in a wheel chair, with the t.v. remote just out of reach and Disturbia comes on, that's a perfect reason to watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment