Great

Rating: 10/10 (19 October 2013)

Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of his best films. Now that's saying something considering that he has also directed Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, Dial M for Murder, and many more. So, what makes Rear Window so good? Well, he was able to tell a 112 minute story using only one apartment building and the view from its window. Not many other people can do that and have it turn out well.
The movie begins with Jeff (James Stewart) in a wheelchair with a broken leg at his apartment. The only way he can pass the time is by watching the neighbors go about their daily activity. One day he notices that one of his neighbors', Lars Thorwhald (Raymond Burr), has gone missing. He soon draws the conclusion that he murdered her and he draws his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) and another friend Stella (Thelma Ritter) into this same opinion. But Jeff's old friend from the war, Det. Doyle (Wendell Correy) does not have the same idea. Jeff then feels a need to prove that he is right, which is what the second half of the movie consists of.
Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant use of different camera angles, and especially the way he set up the view from Jeff's apartment are legendary. If any other director had tried to do this it would end terribly as we learned from the 1998 remake starring Christopher Reeve, and the Shia LaBeouf movie of the same concept Disturbia. You would think that people have learned not to try to remake Hitchcock because of horrible remakes like Psycho or A Perfect Murder (Dial M for Murder.) Rear Window is one of Hitchcock's greatest films, and even though it is not as suspenseful as some of his other works he make up for it in mystery and the funny fact that although Jeff is watching everyone else, we are watching Jeff.