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DISTURBIA
(Review)
Shia LaBeouf.
You may not know how to spell his name just yet, but chances are, if you’ve seen Transformers (review: Archive July 2007), you know this kid and you know his face. And though he’s been banging around for a while now (maybe you saw him in Constantine, or in The Greatest Game Ever Played, or in Bobby, or maybe even Disney’s Even Stevens), Steven Spielberg seems to be making a big push to crown him the first official star of Hollywood’s latest generation of actors.
After the Spielberg-produced Transformers, Shia is going to be up on the big screen with pop culture icon Indiana Jones, in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods.
But if there is indeed some evil Spielbergian Master Plan, that Plan starts here, in D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia.
Kale Brecht (LaBeouf) lost his father (Matt Craven) in a tragic car accident a year ago. Since then, he’s had a number of run-ins with the law. The latest ends in his house arrest, for which his mother Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss) needs to pay the state $12 a day for.
Consigned to his house and most of the front- and backyard by a “tether,” tormented by the neighbourhood kids, cut off from his Xbox and his iTunes, and suffering “chronic boredom,” Kale discovers the “reality without the television,” as he starts spying on his neighbours, particularly newcomer Ashley (Sarah Roemer, from The Grudge 2).
But Kale soon begins to suspect his neighbour, Mr. Turner (David Morse), has a murderous secret, and his house arrest quickly proves to be much more than he bargained for.
Now, if anything works in this agreeable popcorn thriller, it’s clearly LaBeouf, who anchors the audience with a credible performance of a teen-ager unsuccessfully dealing with the grief and guilt of a parent’s death.
From the opening prologue, which ends with that great reaction shot as Kale realizes his father is dead, LaBeouf presents an identifiable protagonist who, for all his subsequent fixation on Turner and his suspected crimes, is still at heart, a teen-ager with raging hormones.
LaBeouf proves up to the task, as he juggles all this, while still maintaining the charm and charisma that is speedily making him a household name.
And in Roemer, the film finds a leading lady who meets LaBeouf on the same level. Roemer’s performance may not be as solid as LaBeouf’s (we learn a lot more about Ashley from Kale’s monologue about her than what we actually see on-screen), but she holds up nonetheless.
It’s the other cast members who don’t fare quite as well.
While Carrie-Anne Moss does her best with a slightly underwritten part, Aaron Yoo (who plays Ronnie, Kale’s goofy best friend) is the stereotypical comic relief, and David Morse, is, well, David Morse. The man can do “Creepy Dude” in his sleep, and probably does. It may have been more interesting to have had an actor cast against type as Turner, instead of Mr. King Creepy Dude.
Still, despite sections terribly reminiscent of past films (The Blair Witch Project, Poltergeist, as well as the obvious and oft-mentioned Rear Window—it’s not like this is the first time anyone’s used the Rear Window gambit, after all), Disturbia does succeed in its modest aims.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s an agreeable popcorn thriller. It’s not exactly riveting, but it is engaging. But perhaps most importantly, its success at the box-office is a clear signal that LaBeouf is on the cusp of Hollywood stardom, an idea that Spielberg seems more than happy to see come to fruition.
(Disturbia OS courtesy of impawards.com.)
(Review)
Shia LaBeouf.
You may not know how to spell his name just yet, but chances are, if you’ve seen Transformers (review: Archive July 2007), you know this kid and you know his face. And though he’s been banging around for a while now (maybe you saw him in Constantine, or in The Greatest Game Ever Played, or in Bobby, or maybe even Disney’s Even Stevens), Steven Spielberg seems to be making a big push to crown him the first official star of Hollywood’s latest generation of actors.
After the Spielberg-produced Transformers, Shia is going to be up on the big screen with pop culture icon Indiana Jones, in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods.
But if there is indeed some evil Spielbergian Master Plan, that Plan starts here, in D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia.
Kale Brecht (LaBeouf) lost his father (Matt Craven) in a tragic car accident a year ago. Since then, he’s had a number of run-ins with the law. The latest ends in his house arrest, for which his mother Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss) needs to pay the state $12 a day for.
Consigned to his house and most of the front- and backyard by a “tether,” tormented by the neighbourhood kids, cut off from his Xbox and his iTunes, and suffering “chronic boredom,” Kale discovers the “reality without the television,” as he starts spying on his neighbours, particularly newcomer Ashley (Sarah Roemer, from The Grudge 2).
But Kale soon begins to suspect his neighbour, Mr. Turner (David Morse), has a murderous secret, and his house arrest quickly proves to be much more than he bargained for.
Now, if anything works in this agreeable popcorn thriller, it’s clearly LaBeouf, who anchors the audience with a credible performance of a teen-ager unsuccessfully dealing with the grief and guilt of a parent’s death.
From the opening prologue, which ends with that great reaction shot as Kale realizes his father is dead, LaBeouf presents an identifiable protagonist who, for all his subsequent fixation on Turner and his suspected crimes, is still at heart, a teen-ager with raging hormones.
LaBeouf proves up to the task, as he juggles all this, while still maintaining the charm and charisma that is speedily making him a household name.
And in Roemer, the film finds a leading lady who meets LaBeouf on the same level. Roemer’s performance may not be as solid as LaBeouf’s (we learn a lot more about Ashley from Kale’s monologue about her than what we actually see on-screen), but she holds up nonetheless.
It’s the other cast members who don’t fare quite as well.
While Carrie-Anne Moss does her best with a slightly underwritten part, Aaron Yoo (who plays Ronnie, Kale’s goofy best friend) is the stereotypical comic relief, and David Morse, is, well, David Morse. The man can do “Creepy Dude” in his sleep, and probably does. It may have been more interesting to have had an actor cast against type as Turner, instead of Mr. King Creepy Dude.
Still, despite sections terribly reminiscent of past films (The Blair Witch Project, Poltergeist, as well as the obvious and oft-mentioned Rear Window—it’s not like this is the first time anyone’s used the Rear Window gambit, after all), Disturbia does succeed in its modest aims.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s an agreeable popcorn thriller. It’s not exactly riveting, but it is engaging. But perhaps most importantly, its success at the box-office is a clear signal that LaBeouf is on the cusp of Hollywood stardom, an idea that Spielberg seems more than happy to see come to fruition.
(Disturbia OS courtesy of impawards.com.)
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