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DISTURBIA / D.J. Caruso (2007)

April 8th, 2007 by Scott Marks

Disturbia (2007)
Directed by: D.J. Caruso
Written by: Christopher B. Landon, Carl Ellsworth
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse, Aaron Yoo, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Matt Craven, Viola Davis, Brandon Caruso, Luciano Rauso, Daniel Caruso, Kevin Quinn, Elyse Mirto, Suzanne Rico, Kent Shocknek
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Running Time: 104 min.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Shia LeBoeuf has been making the talk show circuit swearing up and down that Disturba is not a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. He must not have seen the trailer.

It all began so peacefully with Kale (LeBoeuf) and his dad bonding on an idyllic fishing trip. Make sure to notice the Coca-Cola cans. Not only is it great product placement, but when their car overturns on the ride home, it assures us that the cause of dad’s death was an accident, not a DUI.

Kale was behind the wheel. A year later he belts a teacher who asks what his father would think of Kale’s indolent behavior. The punch earns him three months house arrest complete with a Government Issue anklet.

Initially Kale whiles away the days watching TV and consuming mass quantities of peanut butter, Hershey’s syrup and Red Bull. Even though his mom Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss) insists that he keep the place tidy, the hardest work Kale does is stomping on the doody-filled plastic bag the pesky neighbor kids set ablaze on his porch.

While testing the limits of his leg bracelet Kale notices Ashley (Sarah Roemer, who’s more Kate Hudson than Grace Kelly), the pretty new next door neighbor whose bedroom he can peer into from his dead dad’s office. Kale’s scoptophilia doesn’t stop with sexy neighbors. He also has a hunch that Mr. Turner’s (David Morse) dented blue Mustang is the same one belonging to a serial killer being talked about on the evening news.

So far, so Hitchcock. Even though it was a flagrant rip-off, I was going along for the ride. The genius of Rear Window is that Jimmy Stewart is trapped in a wheelchair (this was decades before the Americans with Disabilities Act) and unable to leave his home. The entire film takes place inside his apartment and, with the exception of a couple of shots towards the end, exclusively from Stewart’s POV.

Imagine mother figure Thelma Ritter strolling across the courtyard for a hot date with wife-killer Lars Thorwald, yet that’s precisely what Julie does. David Morse is a superb screen psycho, but even he can’t successfully transform the Ray Burr figure into Halloween’s Michael Meyers.

Instead of trusting the characters, not to mention Hitchcock’s foolproof blueprint, the screenplay dead ends with a thing-that-wouldn’t-die formula. Kale’s friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo doing a damn fine Wendell Corey) sneaks a camcorder into Turner’s garage to get video evidence of a blue recycling bag filled with guts. Instead of sustaining suspense, D.J. Caruso delivers Blair Witch visuals and an ill-timed goof by comic relief Ronnie.

The most disturbing thing about the AMC Mission Valley screening that I attended was the sloppy presentation. For years I didn’t have to leave the auditorium in mid-screening to complain about projection. Now I seem to spend as much time in the lobby as I do the theater.

Every projectionist I ever had the pleasure of working with knew my two favorite booth mantras: “There are two kinds of focus: in and out” and “The projectionist has final cut.” AMC whined that the prints frequently arrive late for screenings and have to be assembled on the fly. It takes just as much time to do it wrong as it does right. Four sprocket holes on each side and you cut and splice in the middle. Once you learn it, you never forget.

The film jumped frame twice, the second infraction taking ten minutes to resolve. If it was a Scorsese screening I’d have killed somebody, but I’m tired of complaining, particularly about a tepid merger of Cornell Woolrich and a William Shatner mask. I sat comfortably positioned in the center of the row and didn’t feel like once again scaling patrons. It’s not my job.

How must the studios feel when the word-of-mouth screening audience, unaware that it’s a framing problem, tells their friends that the boom microphone had a starring role in the feature? Bottom line, movie theaters are here to do two things: sell concessions and show movies.How hard can it be? Bring back union projectionists and let the managers and candy counter kids stay in the lobby and herd customers.

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical