Good Update

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 2008)

Disturbia (2007)
*** (out of 4)
An updated version of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window has a troubled teen (Shia LaBeouf) put on house arrest and with nothing else to do he starts watching his neighbors when he think he sees one (David Morse) kill a woman. I don't think there's anyway to deny that this film was largely influenced by the Hitchcock movie and that includes the movies overall structure. As with the original movie, the director here takes his time building up to the suspense. The murder doesn't happen until the halfway point and the suspense really doesn't start until the final twenty minutes. The first part of the movie lets us get to know the characters and while it does go on a tad bit too long it pays off in the end. The character stuff also tends to be on the dumb teenager side but once the suspense gets going the film is a home run. LaBeouf and Sarah Roemer are good in their roles but it's Morse who really steals the film. I've always felt he was one of the most underrated and underseen character actors out there so it was nice that this film was a hit and allowed people to see him.