Disturbia

There is a disturbing trend in many recent movies wherein the protagonist is...well...not very likable. In Happily Never After it was not just the protagonist, a churlish, self-centered servant, but his love interest, the redesigned Cindarella who were unlikable. The most likable character in the whole mess was Prince Charming...the bumbling portrayal of him trying to do what was expected made him almost likable whereas the only reason you wanted gallery boy and Cindarella to wind up together was so they could make each other miserable...I have a mental picture of them in a trailer park with rusted out siding, cardboard over the windows, he a beer-bellied ball cap wearing stumble-drunk and she a ratty haired belly-baring multi-time mom with about half her teeth and a shrill voice blaring at him to move the rusted junk buckets masquerading as a collection of cars being worked on. Seemd to fit their characters. They just...weren't...likable.

In Disturbia (2007) we get more of the same. The hero, Kale, is presented as having a reason for being unlikable...his Dad is killed in a bizarre and pointless car crash in the opening scenes leading him to become a morose, brooding, uncaring, angst-ridden teen...about as cliched a character as you can get in the early years of this millenium with the exception that he is fairly clean cut.

Once he punches his teacher he is put on house arrest, thus giving us all the elements to blatantly let you know this is nothing but an uncredited remake of Rear Window. The main problem here is perhaps no current actor can make a voyeur less creepy in the way the eminently talented Jimmy Stewart did.

Kale is extremely creepy. He spends his time watching his neighbors in a way that crosses stalking with voyeurism...he scopes out the pre-teen boys who seem to watch one scene of a nude woman rubbing her breasts over and over and over...apparently that movie runs on a continuous loop. Kale spends it watching the boys watching the tv...he also watches his teenage neighbor as she undresses, poses in scanty clothes while doing katas, swims, and so forth. His behavior is quite disturbing.

On the bright side, his boorish behavior does not cost him. When Ashley throws a party Kale does his own conformist act by accusing her of being a conformist because she is going to hang out with some kids from school. This off-hand slap at cultural compatability makes no sense in this film...then again, how could it? He tries to ruin her party by piping obnoxious elevator music. She angrily confronts him and he then reveals he has been watching her...at first she is angry. And who wouldn't be? She has been dressing in front of open windows, wearing sexy swimwear, etc. and he has been watching her. However, his stalkerish behavior is rewarded by her swooning in his arms even though he has been watching her and ruining her party.

Fortunately, this movie is rescued from you noticing his unlikability by A) numerous gratuitous shots of Ashley snapping her bikini bottoms as she emerges from the pool with them glued to her well-toned form and by the sheer stupidity of his other neighbor.

Huh? What do I mean?

Well, his other neighbor, as you no doubt know from the pre-views, is in fact a serial killer. And quite a successful one. He has killed 6 or 7 girls in Texas and gets another half dozen or so in Disturbia. For such an accomplished killer he is quite sloppy...he leaves his drapes open during the murder of one woman, for example...chases people around out in the open despite their yelling and screaming and in general acts in many ways designed to draw attention to himself.

Overall the creep factor of spying on neighbors in their homes (a surprisingly large number of them have no concept of closing the drapes/shades etc. on their bedroom windows) is lost in a decent finale, although Kale is no smarter...instead of dealing with a sadistic, stronger opponent while he has him knocked unconscious, the apparently dim-witted but suddenly tender-hearted Kale abandons his girlfriend and best friend to sneak cautiously through his neighbors house....while shouting "Mom" repeatedly. What is the point of walking as quietly as you can if you are just going to shout quite loudly?

Overall it was pretty entertaining and it was easy to ignore some of the plot oddities. Not an award winning movie or worth re-watching but a diverting hour and change of your life anyway.