Disturbia (2007)

Disturbia isn’t a great thriller, or even a very memorable one, but this compact little flick delivers some thrills, injects humor and visual flair, and boasts an appealing performance from Shia LaBeouf. Such positives help compensate for what winds up a disappointing abundance of genre clichés. 

LaBeouf is Kale Brecht, a smart and likeable 17-year-old going through an angsty period. It’s been a year since his father (Matt Craven) died in a violent car crash – we see the incident play out in a brief prologue – and Kale, who was driving, still grieves the loss. The teen’s temper gets the better of him when a teacher makes a taunting comment about his late dad. Kale slugs the guy and is subsequently sentenced to house arrest for three months. Fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet, he is instructed that a GPS monitoring device will immediately notify police if he strays more than 100 feet from home. 

At first, it looks to be more picnic than punishment. Kale settles in for a vacation of videogames and downloading music, but his mom (Carrie-Anne Moss) soon takes away his Xbox and cancels his iTunes subscription.

What is a bored teen to do? Spy on his neighbors, of course.

Luckily for Kale, his neighbors are not fans of drapes, blinds or modesty. Our hormone-addled protagonist gets an eyeful of Ashley (Sarah Roemer), whose family has just moved in next door. With the help of binoculars, Kale ogles the lithesome girl swimming and sunbathing (this is back in the pre-enlightened days of the 2010s, remember); it’s here that the movie conjures up the Coppertone-scented whiff of a Risky Business-meets-John Hughes vibe. 

Screenwriters Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth wring some genuine laughs out of the teen comedy tropes. Later, when Ashley throws a party and flirts with a jock, Kale sabotages the shindig by positioning his stereo speakers out the window and blasting Minnie Riperton’s cornstarch-laden 1974 ballad, “Lovin’ You.” 

The picture, however, is more interested in channeling Rear Window than Porky’s. Before long, Kale and Ashley are spit-swappin’ pals. Joined by comic-relief sidekick Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), the young trio resolve to find out whether the creepy next-door neighbor (David Morse) is whacking more than weeds. 

Director D.J. Caruso handily maneuvers his way through familiar pic territory. What Disturbia lacks in originality, it makes up for in surefootedness. Perhaps it’s only fitting that Kale lives in a Craftsman-style home, since the movie itself exemplifies solid Hollywood craftsmanship. One minor but notable exception arrives when Caruso breaks from Kale’s point of view to feed the audience information to which our hero is not privy.

Slickness mostly carries Disturbia through its less-inspired sequences, particularly a third act that devolves into slasher clichés. It’s all smoothly done, but the climactic showdown is tiresome and inevitable, and it takes a bit of the shine off an otherwise accomplished B-movie.