Rating of
2.5/4
"Disturbia" Review
efrain - wrote on 11/15/07
Technology is awesome: you can Skype a friend in Italy while IMing a pal in Chile and texting your brother to pick up a pizza on his way home. This disconnected connectedness is a running commentary in “Disturbia”, a humorous thriller starring Shia Labeouf (upcoming “Transformers” or “Holes”).
The bad news: “Disturbia” is predictable, doesn’t bother with loose ends, and is simply a cyber smoothie of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” and Joe Dante’s “The Burbs”. Not that that’s a bad thing, though. Labeouf is a hilarious talent with acting chops that could make him the next Tom Hanks. Is that’s the greatest achievement an actor can make? No, I’m just saying.
Labeouf is Kale, a troubled teen who after an angry outburst (he socks his Spanish teacher in the face) is placed under house arrest, not allowed to leave the perimeter of his house. He spends the summer lazying around the house, playing XBox and iTunes, and making Twinkie castles while mom does the cleaning. Strangely, he quickly finds that all this convenience isn’t enough to keep him sane. The logical alternative? Spying on the hot girl next door and a neighbor who might be a serial killer, of course.
“Disturbia” opens with the beautiful expanse of nature’s freedom, and transitions to the seemingly perfect suburban landscape where captivity awaits within the white picket fences and tree-lined asphalt. Unable to leave his house, Kale’s being cooped up in his house triggers the imagination. Is Mr. Turner a murderer? The characters grab a video camera and stake out the would-be killer’s house.
Technology as both social enabler and inhibitor has a featured role in “Disturbia”. In a world of breaking up on MySpace and private moments broadcasted globally on Blip and YouTube, Kale is the manifestation of our self-inflicted prisons – the lack of face-to-face communication that can allow fear and paranoia to dominate even among the lovely track houses of suburbia. However, the movie’s disturbing conclusion will still make you thankful for technology (cell phones and cameras).
Society is at a high point in impersonal communication and I, too, lament my lack of human-to-human contact in the ‘real world’. I’m so blogging about this tonight, maybe a MySpace bulletin – oh wait, my sister just texted me from downstairs…. pizza’s ready!
