Disturbingly bad

Rating: 3/10 (16 September 2007)

I expected better of Disturbia - in fact, the title, a clever portmanteau of disturb and suburbia, consciously evokes a Richard Linklater production, or perhaps a cool and edgy movie with pseudo-indie credentials. But this is mainstream Hollywood we're talking about and will they ever learn? There are so many things wrong with this film, it's difficult to start.
The protagonist Kale is a deeply unsympathetic character, and any empathy the audience might have with him is thrown out of the window when he punches a Spanish teacher and shows little remorse. So why bother? How can we identify with a spoilt WASP brat? In addition, his mother played by Carrie Ann Moss is cruelly wasted in this film as his his nubile co-star, Sarah Roemer,who just doesn't get enough to do, except drool, pout and swim in her pool. But hey. that's enough to satisfy the film's target audience - teenage boys. The token Asian friend is just that - there to foil Kale's grip on the film and become the predictable, zany and clichéd character expected.
The acting is also incredibly awful with the exception of David Morse as the baddie who is genuinely scary and disturbing in his understated lines. Shia LaBeouf (wtf is that name?) enjoys hamming it up as Kale but it becomes tireseome after 10 minutes.
Mood-wise, Disturbia cannot decide what it is. It wants to be new Hollywood cool but is too Hollywood to make that leap. What starts as a genuinely disturbing film about voyeurism soon falls apart and becomes a so-so Hollywood Horror theme park ride. There are plenty of shocks and jumps but precious little else in the final; 20 minutes. The comic elements also sit uneasily with the rest of the film's dark nature.
The end was just a cop-out and that's the biggest pity. When you pander to test audiences and demographics this is what you get. A film that is more about marketing than film itself.