Disturbia is basically a remake of Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic, though the filmmakers aren’t honest about that. According to the press release, the idea for a movie about someone trapped in his home and spying on his neighbours came to scriptwriter Christopher Landon afresh as he drove through Californian suburbia and realised that the houses’ bland facades might conceal some inner darkness.
That said, Disturbia is a highly enjoyable remake of Rear Window. Instead of the broken leg that keeps photographer Jimmy Stewart stuck in his apartment, gazing at his neighbours through a long lens, we have Shia LaBeouf as Kale, who is under house arrest after punching out a schoolteacher and has a sensor on his leg that buzzes the cops if he strays too far. He also has more technology at his disposal than Stewart had.
Attempting to assuage his boredom (God forbid he should read a book), Kale starts spying on the neighbours, including the pretty girl who’s just moved in next door. In the course of his peeping-tommery, he becomes convinced that the man over the way is a serial killer with the corpses of dead women hidden about his house. That this creepy guy is making friends with Kale’s mom (Carrie-Ann Moss) just makes it all worse. Kale, of course, has to get to the bottom of this.
He’s assisted by his best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) and, indeed, the pretty girl next door — Sarah Roemer in the Grace Kelly role. It’s a nice irony that, unlike Rear Window, Disturbia clearly places her as one of the objects of the protagonist’s voyeurism and obsession. But then he is a boy of about 17 and the teen update of the story works very well. I found it riveting and fun (despite a slow start) and it gets more and more exciting as it goes along, heading for a nerve-racking climax.
Disturbia of course lacks the trenchant irony of Rear Window; we are no longer surprised to be shown that we’re all voyeurs. But it updates the premise well enough and some decent acting helps. LaBeouf is perhaps on his way to becoming the John Cusack of his generation: he’s not exactly a looker, but he has charm and an inner vitality that translates well to the screen. Moss does a fine job, too — after all that Matrix gumf, it’s good to see she can act. Who knew?