No Hitchcock; just a teen thriller

Rating: 5/10 (24 May 2007)

With the high ratings and references to a remake of Hitchcock's Rear Window, I was unpleasantly surprised when I sat down for two hours of teen scene. Also, I was angry over the cheap "shocking scene" at the beginning of the movie that was unnecessarily traumatic to watch (we could have understood Shia's character without it). While David Morse brought some adult weight and the last fifteen minutes of the movie were suspenseful, I was disappointed, to say the least. Shia was so riveting in The Greatest Game Ever Played, but here, he was upstaged by Aaron Yoo who played his best friend. Shia seemed a supreme unlikeable geek, not a cool teen acting out because of emotional trauma. There is no chemistry between him and Sarah Roemer and her role is unnecessary, as Morse, Yoo and Carrie-Ann Moss create the tension. Although I'm not a suspense lover, the edge-of-your-seat scenes near the end were very well done, and Shia showed what I expected of him--but it was too short and too far into the movie to bring up my vote.