On the lookout

Rating: 3/10 (28 July 2018)

Disturbia is an updated teen remake of Rear Window. With an eye on the slacker humour market, director D J Caruso fails to make it tense or exciting or thrilling. It is not the first movie where a horny teenager thinks he has a suspicious neighbour but this is a poor one.
Kale (Shia LaBeouf) has not got over the car accident that killed his father. A year later, Kale lashes out at his Spanish teacher and is sentenced to 3 months under house arrest with an electronic tag on his leg.
Out of boredom Kale starts to spy on his neighbours. The sexy teen Ashley (Sarah Roemer) who is soon attracted to him. However Kale notices that creepy neighbour Mr Turner (David Morse) is acting suspicious at a time when there are news reports of a serial killer at large. Kale thinks he has seen Mr Turner kill a young woman at the house and he is now showing an interest in dating Kale's mother.
Kale, Ashley and school friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) investigate him but Robert soon becomes suspicious that he is being watched.
This is a limp hackneyed thriller that is slow to get going and then goes off the rails at the climax. The director thinks we would be more interested in teenagers hooking up or even worse Kale doing stupid things such as chasing after some kid pranksters so he keeps breaching the conditions of his house arrest.