arresting house party

Rating: 7/10 (5 August 2007)

disturbia-solid suburban thriller about a teen during house arrest who begins watching his neighbors.Shia Lebouf is engaging as the main character.Yes this is a modern remix of the Hitchcock classic Rear Window- not a note for note retelling- but a good update-not an improvement- but an entertaining movie that will work for the modern audience.Carrie Anne Moss and David Morse help add depth to this teen-centric world.Sadly some plot holes and leaps of ill-logic make this ultimately a disposable entertainment that will goose the audience into watching once but may not engage them enough to want to re-watch it.Worth a rental.The DVD has out-takes,a featurette,deleted scenes and a cast and director commentary.I think this is the first commentary I have heard that had 3 cellphone calls on the track- the director's wife,agent and one of the co-stars call in.The commentary track for this PG-13 movie is filled with profanity by Shia Lebouf-who is joined on the track by the director D.J. Caruso and female co-star Sarah Roemer who seem to be enjoying themselves- even though it got old real quick when the director kept pointing out over and over where each scene was shot and how a yard scene from Pasadena was cut with a soundstage shot several times.The movie itself is better than most of the modern Hollywood suspense flicks-carried by the leading man and ready made to sell some DVDs and get rented for folks looking for the latest suspenseful flick.Worth a rental. B-