Better than most PG-13 Thrillers

Rating: 6/10 (20 May 2007)

Everyone has a day when they sit around the house because there's nothing to do, even if it's a nice day. Very few have a day when they cannot leave because of a reason by the law. For Kale (Shia LeBeouf), that's how it's going to be for the next three months.
This is the setting of Disturbia, the new teenage thriller that looks like most every other movie with a PG-13 rating, but surprisingly, almost sets itself into an R rating by putting all the suspense and fear that many feel should be experienced throughout the movie by placing in the second half of the movie.
The movie follows Kale, a troubled teenager who gets put under house arrest for 3 months following an incident at school. How Kale lives during most of his Summer is mostly boredom. His Xbox 360, Ipod and Cable have been disabled by his mother (Carrie-Anne Moss) who has declared that house arrest is exactly what it's going to be. Now that Kale has no entertainment, he turns to a pair of Binoculars and finds the outside world is something that does not get observed so much as we live it.
He recognizes little lives in the neighbors that are different, people who are not the same than how they act, and the girl next door (Sarah Roemer) who happens to like Kale and his friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo). The movie really starts to heat up when Kale believes his neighbor(David Morse) is a killer. The evidence is right there. Or is it? What if this is the actions of a bored kid during house arrest? Could his eyes being deceiving him, or could he be actually on to something? Now, surprisingly, this is actually a very good movie about the idea of how much one pays attention to the outside world, something very few of us actually do in real life. Not surprisingly, the movie takes awhile to actually get into what we are experiencing later in the story as the thriller part, but it's all good, since unlike most thrillers, the characters are explained in mere seconds, and nothing develops on them, just the fact that many of them have dimensions flatter than cardboard. I also enjoyed the performance of David Morse, whose creepy Mr. Turner provides a lot of suspense, and his looks and role are quite intimidating. So intimidating because of how cool he acts, and how vile he can become in this film.
For the parts that I felt were a bit unnecessary was the character Ronnie, who really serves no purpose to the plot. He comes off annoying, and until the last 25 or 30 minutes, does he actually have any involvement with the plot at all. I also dislike the judgment that is brought down on Carrie-Anne Moss for her role in this movie. Apparently, three Matrix films later, everyone wants her to be shooting bad guys and defying reality while sporting leather. Don't worry, she's a very good actress, and don't think because she's done the Matrix movies that she cannot act well, because her performance is top notch.
Overall, the movie delivers enough thrills and "on the edge of your seat" moments during the second half of the film, despite the movie taking awhile through character development to get there. The suspense is nail biting, and the finale is quite rewarding. There are a few flaws in the characters and moments, but none that should be taken into close enough consideration to declare this a movie that needs to be missed.
8/10