DISTURBIA

Disturbia, director, D. J. Caruso, 2007

 

HOOK: Hitchcock for the “Dial P for Pizza” crowd.

 

STORY: The world is in a heightened state of paranoia—thank God we all have cell phones

 

GOSSIP: The story that became Rear Window which this film rips off first appeared in Dime Detective Magazine in February 1942. Hitchcock gave the Jimmy Stewart character a girlfriend (Grace Kelly) and made him a photojournalist (a voyeur as filmed by a voyeur director for an audience of voyeurs). Side note: “the composer” seen by Stewart is future Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian.

 

JOHN: This movie owes its soul to Rear Window, but the use of adolescents and technology makes it more than an update. Anyone who has ever been in a McDonalds during high school lunch time knows that teenagers are from a different planet, but in this film it is they who are trying to find out adult secrets and the tools they use—video cameras, infer-red binoculars, cell phones and iPods intensify this (for them and the audience) even if the plot fails to provide even a remote glint of insight. There’s a Blair Witch segment that will leave you gasping and the obligatory Jack Nicholson scene of a madman breaking through the door with a baseball bat. I thought the movie was creepy, though I couldn’t help siding with the killer about a kid who has a better computer than me.

 

GO GO (2 GOs out of four)

 

SPANKY: You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve read Dilbert cartoons that have more substance than this manipulative re-run. Like this kid is in psychological as well as physical house-arrest because he popped a teacher after the Spanish instructor made a remark about the boy’s father (whose death in a car accident Shia LaBeouf thinks he somehow was responsible for). Projecting that into his relationship with his mother and the building sexuality this nerd has for the girl next door (Juno?) would be a great Hitchcock thing but, John, it just isn’t happening here. Why do you watch movies? You should just imagine your own? I only wish that murderer had taken out the director, producer (Steven Spielberg, can you believe it?) and the boy’s really annoying Japanese-American sidekick as well. This turkey is for viewers who missed Rear Window, The Shining, Blair Witch Project and high school lunch time at McDonalds.

 

“TWO PAWS DOWN” (0 BARKs out of four)

 

KEEPER: “You’re not the only one watching!”