Disturbia
Directed by D.J. Caruso
With his 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated that nobody was qualified to revisit the director’s work except Hitchcock himself. Great art generally doesn’t fare well under anyone’s guidance other than that of its source. Just take a look at some of the recent examples of mangled riffs on Hitchcockian concepts: Gus Van Sant’s 1998 shot-by-shot recreation of Psycho felt vapid and aimless; a made-for-TV take on Rear Window, starring wheelchair-bound Christopher Reeve, could use the subtitle Death of Superman. So, I’m not too pumped for the reported studio remakes of The Birds or Strangers on a Train.
But at least all those mediocre projects show some reverence for the genius behind the real deal. Disturbia, a contemporary reconstruction of Rear Window that makes the Reeve version seem like a delicate masterpiece, never lifts a finger—except maybe its middle one—to deliver solid thrills. As though the lazy plotting and half-assed performances weren’t enough to make this mess reek of failure, Disturbia also carries a tone that inexplicably careens from tragic to comic before collapsing into its own resolute inanity. It’s almost as if DreamWorks devoured Hitchcock’s original treatment, rubbed the eventual defecation onto celluloid and called it a movie.
Don’t bother trying to appreciate the awfulness of Disturbia with the sort of guilty pleasure indulgence that watching cheesy B-movies occasionally allows. The sole point of interest is the surprising amount of talent involved in the production. Director D.J. Caruso’s ominous drama, The Salton Sea, had its moments. And Shia LaBeouf, a marvelously capable young actor whose role in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints resulted in one of last year’s finest performances, here seems like a cardboard cut-out of himself.
Playing the angst-riddled teen in a single-parent home (the mom’s portrayed by Carrie-Anne Moss, whose visibility mysteriously sank after the Matrix movies), LaBeouf’s character gets put under house arrest after beating up his Spanish teacher for making a mean-spirited reference to the high schooler’s late dad. Stuck in his bedroom alongside a requisite stoner pal and seductive love interest, he witnesses an apparent murder across the street.
That’s the whole thing. Hitchcock’s story had the same simple backbone, but a million times more subtlety. Still, film historians should take note of the fact that the final scene of Disturbia contains what might be the first shout-out to YouTube ever put on the big screen. Anyone seeking a fascinating probe into the psychological components of voyeurism, however, take heed: See Red Road instead.
