Great Movie - Lousy Last Act

Rating: 7/10 (5 October 2007)

Far more compelling than is to be reasonably expected of such teen-friendly PG13 thrillers. Of course, it lacks the wit and finesse of the original 'Rear Window', but in all honesty, 'Disturbia' really isn't trying to be a remake; it just steals the basic premise. The leads are all excellent  David Morse does his quietly chilling thing and LaBeouf really surprises with a far more complex performance than we've come to expect from such genre fodder. Sarah Roehmer is clearly the weakest link, struggling to bring any level of depth or realism to her character.
The screenplay by Christopher Landon is packed with inexplicable and gaping plot holes  why is Kale's mother, a realtor, never at home at night? Where did all the party goers vanish to? Why did the police never check the VIN number on the neighbor's car? But such holes rarely get in the way of Caruso's expert handling of the mounting tension. As is the way with promising horror/thrillers of late, however, (remember 'Vacancy'?), a solid and suspenseful film morphs into a lazy and generic slasher movie in the final act.
For those with an interest in such things, special note should be made of Tom Southwell, who spent the better part of twenty years as an illustrator on such movies as 'Blade Runner', 'Goonies', and 'Mission: Impossible', and here creates a beautifully detailed Craftsman home that acts as the primary location of the much of the action.