The Good
An interesting movie that captured the zeitgeist of American youth.
The Bad
I wish they would have developed the David Morse character more.
Kale Brecht (Shia LaBeouf) is on a downward spiral after his father is killed in an auto accident. After beating up a teacher, Kale is placed on house arrest where he has nothing better to do than play video games and watch his neighbors through binoculars. He sets his eyes on Ashley (Sarah Roemer), a hot, new girl in his neighborhood, and eventually they meet and discover that they both aren’t happy in their situations. Then, Kale happens to see Mr. Turner (David Morse) acting mighty peculiar. He comes home late and his car is dented up. This fits the description of a car that was involved in a murder. Kale then witnesses Mr. Turner kill a woman that he has over his house. He eventually involves Ashley and his friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) in this, and they proceed to try and get enough evidence to bring Mr. Turner down. However, Mr. Turner is the furthest thing from a sitting duck and he begins to turn the tables on this unsuspecting band of kids. What ensues is a game of cat and mouse and it soon becomes clear that everybody is in over their heads.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
While not as well done as Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Disturbia works because it manages to reach people without making it seem like that is what it is trying to do.
Features
Doing this commentary track are director D.J. Caruso as well as LaBeouf and Roemer. The overall tone of this thing is having fun as they discuss where scenes were shot, how the X-Box didn’t work at certain times, and how a boy riding his big wheel down the street in underoos was Steven Spielberg’s idea. I also liked how in a lot of the scenes where Shia was looking out the window, D.J. Caruso was really off screen simply telling Shia what he was seeing. Sadly, Shia and Sarah don’t seem as close to the commentary mic as they should be and as a result of this they sound somewhat weird. All in all, you can probably skip around in this track and you shouldn’t miss anything.
The Making of Disturbia
Deleted Scenes
4 scenes are in this section and they have titles like “Do You Wanna Talk?” and “Operation Stupid.” Aside from looking quite well put together, the scenes themselves seem superfluous and don’t really help the movie all that much. One good thing as that the scenes go in the order of the film itself, so if you’re familiar with the movie you know what you’re missing and where.
Music Video
Outtakes
At 87 seconds these cannot have been the only outtakes to have occurred on this set. Some of what we see in this small time frame are Shia getting hurt and getting mad, making out with corpses and goofing up with his on screen dad in the opening fly fishing scene. There, it probably took you shorter to read this paragraph than it will to watch the actual segment on the DVD.
Serial Pursuit Trivia Pop-Up Quiz
Playing with the film, I didn’t really find this track to be that necessary. It tells us about the actors, the scenes and pretty much everything else we are already seeing on screen. We find out things like what is improvised (the fly fishing scene for starters), what a “peeping tom” is, etc. Another problem I have with this Pop-Up quiz is that it doesn’t come up enough. Aside from that, if you have nothing else better to do you will most likely love this thing.
Video
Widescreen Version Enhanced for 16:9 TVs. Disturbia has a very full look to it. On the surface it seems like it could be one of those squeaky clean, coming of age teen films. However, the actual subject matter of the movie isn’t like that at all. There seems to be an almost orange tone to each shot and these added a nice sense of foreboding to all the scenes involving Mr. Turner. This movie also utilizes present day technology in a very straight forward way, and in doing this it shows us how easily we can keep an eye on one another.
Audio
Dolby Digital: English 5.1 Surround EX. French 5.1 Surround EX. Spanish 5.1 Surround EX. Subtitled in English, French and Spanish. The audio in Disturbia was good. I never had to struggle to listen to what the actors were saying, but I did notice that the audio changed quite a bit when things were loud vs. when characters were merely talking to one another. As soon as the noise shot up, I always had to readjust my levels and I can’t blame my one speaker TV because I watched this movie on a surround sound setup.
Package
Shia holding binoculars with Sarah Roemer and David Morse in the lenses is the featured image on this front cover. The back features an arty shot of Shia looking through some blinds, as well as some images from the movie. There is a description of what this film is about, a Special Features listing, a cast list and technical specs.
Final Word
Shia LaBeouf has blossomed into a really good actor. I remember seeing him work when I was playing an extra on Even Stevens. If you would have told me then that this guy was going to be some huge, action movie star, I never would have believed it. Looking at his career he seems to have ascended doing movies like Holes and Constantine. He has a quality about him that makes him imminently easy to watch on screen. I can’t rightly pinpoint what it is but I am not surprised that directors and producers like to use him in movies. There is an everyman quality about him and I think that’s why people of all ages have helped turn him into a bankable movie star.
Also, this movie really gets summer in the suburbs down correctly. It manages to feel like a summer movie, a thriller and relationship piece all in one. Disturbia’s ability to be all things to all people really accounts for why it became the No. 1 movie at the box office three weeks in a row.
Disturbia was released April 12, 2007.
