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DISTURBIA - MOVIE REVIEW

Disturbia (English , 2007)

Director : D.J.Caruso

Cast : Shia LeBeouf , Aaron Yoo , Sarah Roemer , David Morse

After a long , self-imposed sabbatical from movies , I decided to break the dry run , with this one...

Kale Brecht (Shia LeBeouf) , another ordinary American teenager,loses his father in a car accident . A year later he ends up being placed under house arrest for 3 months , for hitting out at his Spanish teacher , who mentions his father , during class.

Now , just when Kale is trying to figure out how to spend his time , he notices that new neighbors have moved in . He is almost obsessed with the beautiful chick Ashley (Sarah Roemer) , who has just moved in with her family next door.

One night , Kale realizes that there has been a murder in town , and due to various reasons , he suspects his neighbor , Mr.Turner ( David Morse) of being the murderer. He then spies on Turner , and thinks he has uncovered the murder mystery.

This movie can hardly be termed as a great movie , but it definitely makes for some rather interesting viewing.

The story is rather simple , and is riddled with a few cliches. Predictability is where the movie loses out , especially towards the latter portions. It's really tough to classify this kind of movie. It turns out to be a teen flick in some portions , a romantic movie in some , and thankfully as a thriller for the bulk part.

The acting is nothing great to write home about , since the roles don't provide much scope for any of the cast members. Nevertheless , everyone has come up with a decent performance. The story is interesting enough to keep you interested for the most part. But somewhere down the line , it becomes very predictable , and the Director gives us the liberty to guess what he has in store for us in the next few scenes , and unfortunately , most of my guesses were proved right.

Being a murder mystery freak , I was almost disappointed by the movie , as it had nothing new to offer. . But the pacy portions kept me going.

The movie would have been much better if the Director had made a full-fledged thriller. Instead we are made to put up with romance and comedy being thrown in at regular intervals. However the best scenes in the movie are the comic ones. Like the ones in which Kale and his friend Ronnie ( Aaron Yoo) spy on a strikingly alluring Ashley , as she swims in her house-pool.

The screenplay is very good and the movie is fast towards the latter portions . But it can be rather tiresome to endure the romance and voyeurism which is portrayed in huge dollops , before the actual mystery starts.

Although cliched and predictable, the movie manages to keep us interested , except for a few scenes.

I felt product-placement was done pretty well here . We have XBOX , Apple iTunes and iPod , which form an essential part of any American teenager's life.

Overall , I would not strongly recommend this movie , as it does not manage to provide anything substantial. However , it can be termed as worthwhile , if you decided to watch it one boring night , with nothing else to do... like I did...

VERDICT : 2.5 / 5 ( Almost interesting)