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I spy with my little eye...
Ever played that game when you were young? You know...the one that forces you to look at your seemingly mundane surrounding for something out of the ordinary. Well, that's exactly the name of that game in Dreamwork's latest thriller - Disturbia.
Kale (Shia LaBeouf) is a teenager under house arrest, as a result of too much angst and psychological pain arising from the lost of a parent. Being trapped within your own house for a couple of months doesn't sound too bad - until your mom decides to cut your cable, itunes and xbox live.
Just what is Kale to do? Well, he starts to snoop around his seemingly serene suburban neighbourhood. Just like Desperate Housewives, we all know that suburbia isn't all that serene.
Kale starts to uncover the dirty little secrets of everyone in the neighbourhood, and quips to his partner-in-crime, Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) - "It's just like reality TV, minus the TV!"
But some things are meant to be kept secret. This is when the game turns deadly for all involved.
If the premise for this movie seems familiar, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window gave audiences the similar disturbing notion of just how well do you know your neighbours, and explored voyeurism to various degrees.
Disturbia, however, merely skims the surface of voyeurism, and issues of privacy. With stock neighbourhood characters and familiar shock-tactics, Disturbia falls short of paying a true homage to Hitchcock.
For a large duration of the movie, Disturbia seemed like another thriller for the teenage crowd. Perhaps executive producers, Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock, of "Old School" and "Road Trip" fame, just couldn't pull themselves away from the teen genre. Pool parties, love interest, and teenage hormones bubbling under the surface is a recipe for any teen flick.
The build-up to the main plot was too slow for my liking. I was actually hoping for a mention of a dead body sooner, than later.
Fret not; all is not lost with Disturbia.
Shia LaBeouf of Even Stevens, and more recently, Transformers fame, proves that he can indeed carry a film by himself. His presence on screen is truly appealing. Girls, you can head for this film, just to see how grown up this child actor has become.
The film is also littered with interesting pop cultural references, and hilarious punk'd style pranks. Disturbia is worth a watch if you've got money to spare, and want to get away from all the noise and spiel of the summer blockbusters. HOOKED
Hooked's rating: 3/5
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