Disturbia (2007) [Widescreen] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

**/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A Extras C+
BD – Image B+ Sound A- (DD)/A (DTS) Extras C+
starring Shia LaBeouf, David Morse, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss
screenplay by Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth
directed by D.J. Caruso

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I’m not terribly upset that Disturbia directly steals from the infinitely superior Rear Window. If ever there was a time to resurrect the lesson in voyeurism that is Hitchcock’s masterpiece, it’s now, at the dawn of the closed-circuited twenty-first century. The problem with the newer film isn’t that it’s a rip-off, but that it fundamentally misunderstands its source. The terribly ambiguous stance on Jimmy Stewart’s Peeping Tom tendencies has become 100% gung-ho support of illegal surveillance, a development problematic for reasons that go beyond ethical considerations and political ramifications. I get that nobody involved means for Disturbia to champion creep behaviour–they’re merely fulfilling the hormonal wishes of the adolescents who made it a surprise hit last spring. It’s just that, stripped of any theme beyond catching a killer, Rear Window‘s not that interesting to watch.

To be fair, the opening moments of Disturbia do have a surprising amount of bite. Though it’s perhaps tired to give our hero a chip on his shoulder due to a dead father, director D.J. Caruso proves surprisingly adept at mining pathos from the car crash that claims daddy’s life and the sullen angst that leads Kale (Shia LaBeouf) to deck his Spanish teacher, thus landing him under house arrest. LaBeouf, an unlikely but totally credible leading man, does well in the role, and the initial bumming-around-the-house scenes have a convincing ennui. True, his token-Asian best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) is a totally useless character and the smouldering girl-next-door Ashley (Sarah Roemer) is leered at too much, but the mood is right and Roemer has Lauren Bacall resonances to lift herself out of mere cheesecake status. So: bring on the plot–and make it a good one!

Alas, it’s a non-starter. Part of the problem is that the villain–a serial killer named Turner (David Morse, so you know he’s evil)–is one of those boring movie sadists who stares intently ahead with such a perverted smile that you wonder why he isn’t arrested within the first five minutes. But the bigger issue is how we’re supposed to apprehend the intense scrutiny the three teenage principals invest in their invasive spying on Turner’s house, as well as Kale’s keeping tabs on the rest of the neighbourhood. Hitchcock tried to implicate us in his photographer’s voyeurism–a little of that would’ve gone a long way here. I would have even settled for something more in line with our contemporary quagmire, like Andrea Arnold’s Red Road and its uncomfortable focus on a woman’s role in (and the power granted by) the surveillance society. Anything, in fact, other than the nothing this movie has and the boring machinations it facilitates.

Given a loaded premise, a decent enough director, and a capable set of leads, the best Disturbia can come up with is the issue of when Kale will unmask the killer and have the big dumb fight-and-chase climax demanded by the audience. It’s not flagrantly offensive in its stupidity (though the exploitation of Ronnie as cannon fodder can be a head-slapper at times), and I’ve certainly felt more battered this year by the likes of Norbit and License to Wed. Yet although I imagine the teenagers who filled the studio’s coffers got exactly what they came for, the feeling of concept-interruptus left me irritated. Disturbia is a perfect example of why Hollywood is such a joke these days: not because it’s an especially bad movie, but because it’s apparent that the filmmakers rigorously leeched it of anything that might’ve raised it above a certain level. As it’s been decided that you’re not going to care about anything besides Kale’s immediate jeopardy, it will be damned if you get anything more to ponder than when is he going to notice the dude with the knife behind him.

THE DVD
DreamWorks’ DVD release of Disturbia is sufficient. The 1.78:1, 16×9-enhanced presentation of the widescreen edition is slightly lacking in the detail department, as colours are a tad too garish to accommodate the finer points of the image. Still, it’s only a minor problem, and those hues do indeed pop. The Dolby 5.1 EX audio is supremely harmonious: aside from the furious action of the climax, one doesn’t notice individual cues so much as the harmonious blending of sounds into a vivid sonic environment. Extras are as follows:

Commentary with D.J. Caruso, Shia LaBeouf and Sarah Roemer
The three begin by declaring that they have drinks and a whole chicken in front of them, and the track is suitably jokey throughout. Roemer says very little, LaBeouf is rather excitable, and Caruso provides info on technical challenges (location vs. studio; Steadicams in golf carts), if not much in the way of artistic insight.

“The Making of Disturbia“ (14 mins.)
A professional making-of that does its best to deliver a friendly take on people without a lot on their minds. Caruso and company mainly perform the glad-handing on how great the concept is and how deep things are (the director claims to be updating voyeurism, but who is he kidding?). The most candid moment: Carrie-Anne Moss pondering LaBeouf and wistfully recalling when she was young and actually getting roles.

Deleted Scenes
There’re four of them, three of which are heart-to-hearts with Kale’s mother Julie (Moss); one quiet scene of Mom pouring her heart out has the closest thing to real drama on this disc. Another highlight finds Ronnie trying to dissuade Kale from further actions, which is again the closest the otherwise goofy character gets to something genuine.

“Serial Pursuit” Trivia Pop-Up
What it sounds like. With most of the participants lacking long careers from which to mine factoids, this has to stretch: the opening car crash segues into WHO statistics on auto accidents, while the scene in Spanish class is occasion for mentioning that Mexico has the largest population of Spanish speakers.

Outtakes (1 min.)
Those who dreamed of seeing LaBeouf French-kiss a mummified corpse have their prayers answered.

Music Video for “Don’t Make Me Wait” by This World Fair (4 mins.)
A drippy song gets a gauzy video: clips from Disturbia are intercut with morose rockers playing while the obligatory hot chick looks on. It’s kind of interesting for how the movie footage is repurposed for the video, but mostly, this is swill.

A photo gallery and the trailer rounds things out; trailers for Stardust, Blades of Glory, and Next begin on startup.

THE BLU-RAY DISC
by Bill Chambers Disturbia looks significantly better on Blu-ray than it does on DVD, a direct A/B comparison revealing–in addition to the typical boost in fine detail (and I do mean fine detail: the increased resolution renders those telescoped shots of Ms. Roemer doubly voyeuristic)–richer shadows (important during the night-draped climax) and a more variegated palette. Still, these relative improvements do not a demo disc make, as the consistently plugged-up contrasts have a tendency to rob the image of the three-dimensionality that is a, if not the, major selling point of HiDef. Unlike its standard-def counterpart, this disc offers 6.1 DTS-ES audio encoded at 1.5mbps, and beyond being predictably louder than the DD 5.1 EX alternative (which clocks in at a less impressive 640kbps), it’s the preferred option for its greater clarity and transparency. Save the bonus trailers of the standard-def platter, extras are identical across the range of formats, though here they are all presented, like the feature proper, in glorious 1080p.

• DVD: 104 minutes; PG-13; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1 EX, French DD 5.1 EX, Spanish DD 5.1 EX; CC; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; DreamWorks
• BD: 104 minutes; PG-13; 1.78:1 (1080p/MPEG-4); English DD 5.1 EX, English DTS-ES 6.1, French DD 5.1 EX, Spanish DD 5.1 EX; CC; English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese subtitles; BD-50; Region One; DreamWorks