{"id":2692,"date":"2007-05-21T22:46:33","date_gmt":"2007-05-22T02:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinemacrazed.wordpress.com\/?p=2692"},"modified":"2007-05-21T22:46:33","modified_gmt":"2007-05-22T02:46:33","slug":"disturbia-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/21\/disturbia-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Disturbia (2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"disturbia-screening\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re willing to ignore all the obvious positions our characters are put in, \u201cDisturbia\u201d will be pretty excellent. I wasn\u2019t willing to ignore all the obvious marks, so I found it to be pretty damn frustrating. Let\u2019s see, there\u2019s our character Kale who is known for being a liar and deceiver, then there\u2019s our mom who is so self-involved, she can\u2019t listen to our hero, and of course a cop who has it out for him who we know will just come in the nick of time to help our hero when in trouble. And then there\u2019s that nasty habit of the film being so utterly derivative. If there was ever going to be a remake of \u201cRear Window,\u201d you could basically re-title this and not know the difference. \u201cDisturbia\u201d is a pretty cheesy thriller that is never afraid to flaunt that it\u2019s so predictable.<\/p>\n

The house arrest, and elimination of all distractions leads to nosiness and our hero\u2019s potential questioning of his own sanity under cabin fever. Thus, we\u2019re supposed to be led down this path of whether the neighbor across the street is or isn\u2019t an axe murderer with something to hide. And of course there\u2019s our Grace Kelly mark, the woman in peril we know will be involved with our homebound hero and potentially suffer the wrath of the maybe killer. \u201cDisturbia\u201d can only lead us on the \u201cis he a killer or is it all Kale\u2019s imagination\u201d trail before it starts to get old.<\/p>\n

It then dispenses with the firm but bloodless action that\u2019s centered around forced tension, two scenes mimicking the Grace Kelly house probe in \u201cRear Window\u201d sans the biting suspense, and a finale that\u2019s both rushed and forced; meanwhile, the focus on the psychotic neighbor next door is minimal so he’s barely a threat, characters are under-developed, and Kale’s best friend is used for comic relief that’s barely comical, and distracts from the story. We’re also forced to focus on Kale’s budding relationship with his next door neighbor, which all becomes nothing more than padding, since she’s never put into as much immediate danger as Moss’ character is. A few of the highlights of \u201cDisturbia\u201d is the performance from David Morse who is very entertaining as the resident villain who may or may not be a killer.<\/p>\n

If you have any common sense, then you know that he may, but in spite of the zero mounting tension built on his character, Morse does what he can and comes out ahead as usual. Carrie Anne Moss\u2019 performance as Kale\u2019s mother is strictly utilitarian, but she\u2019s a very likable actress who is interesting as Kale\u2019s constant foil and moral center. As for Sarah Roemer, she\u2019s a looker if I do say so myself, I expect a large career of many roles, and zero acting ability. When it’s necessary to bring the movie to a close, the writers bring the entire story to a screeching halt in favor of a climax that’s dropped on our laps and left with little terror or aftermath. All the while we’re questioning the dubious behavior of the neighbor. Why would the character put up such a front to cover his crime and then go completely loco attempting to kill everyone in his path?<\/p>\n

It simply made zero sense. But, the writers seemed hasty to wrap it all up in the ninety minute mark, and wrap it up they do, even if it ends on a cheesy happy ending that never really sells this as a legit thriller in the end; this leaves about many dangling plot points. Is Kale over his father, what was the connection between Kale’s father and the killer? What about the poor girl in the basement? Is it really that easy to get over all your issues if you have a hot girl by your side? It’s hackneyed, and it all just feels like something I\u2019d read in \u201cFear Street\u201d from R.L. Stine, and even those books had more suspense, and violence than this mediocre rehash. In the end, it\u2019s not a terrible movie, but then, it\u2019s hardly a good one either. It\u2019s neither horror, nor thriller, just a teen melodrama set to a thriller backdrop that I could take or leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re willing to ignore all the obvious positions our characters are put in, \u201cDisturbia\u201d will be pretty excellent. I wasn\u2019t willing to ignore all the obvious marks, so I found it to be pretty damn frustrating. Let\u2019s see, there\u2019s our character Kale who is known for being a liar and deceiver, then there\u2019s our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[249,302,696,703,835,874,1013,1087],"class_list":["post-2692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-d","tag-drama","tag-murder","tag-mystery","tag-remake","tag-romance","tag-suspense","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}