Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window has spawned several imitations (plus one TV remake, starring Christopher Reeve) but it's tough to give Cornell Woolrich's original story - of a physically confined man who thinks he sees a murder next door - a new spin when Hitchcock's film cleverly challenges the audience to guess each plot point as the lead characters basically invade their neighbour's private life, and treat the whole escapade like a game.

Disturbia isn't an official remake, but it definitely borrows from the Rear Window template, smartly nodding to the Grace Kelly/James Stewart film in both direct and amusingly subtle ways, and for its first third, Disturbia is pretty clever in setting up the physical limitations of Kale, a rebellious youth under house arrest for 3 months because he popped his Spanish teacher in the head after making a crack about Kale's recently dead father.

Like Cherish, another Rear Window variation with a character under house arrest, director D.J. Caruso has Kale discover, test, and map out the physical parameters of his restricted world, sometimes yielding great sequences like Operation Stupid, the aptly titled venture wherein Kale and his buddies attempt to extract clues to prove lonely Mr. Turner (David Morse, again typecast as a brooding villain) is doing more than carving up trophy game.

As James Stewart's Zeiss camera and binocular lenses helped him see beyond his apartment walls, Kale uses contemporary tech – camera phones, wireless security networks, and personalized cellphone rings – to venture into Turner's home, and Caruso structures some tense sequences which ultimately lead to a pivotal moment where Turner is well on the way to winning Kale's game of catch-the-killer.

With the exception of fellow young adults, everyone (including pre-teens) is against Kale, and the film remains anchored from his age group's vantage point: his Spanish teacher is an uncaring bully; the local beat cop (Crank 's Jose Pablo Cantillo) has too much fun teasing and rattling Kale's suburban cage, Ashley's parents are stiff uncaring robots, and Kale's de-sexualized mom (Carrie-Anne Moss) uses her job as an excuse to avoid making time to address the collective grief with her son.

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For most of the film, Morse plays creepy Mr. Turner with discreet charm and menacing calm, and he's a man who knows how to scheme and spin a bad situation into something favourable, so it's incredibly disappointing when Caruso and the screenwriters go for a conventional finale that has mom held hostage, and Kale coming to rescue her from Turner's Gacy-styled basement. The shift makes no sense because Turner was winning the game; his reason to go bonkers and risk discovery is less of his character's irrepressible ego, and more of the scriptwriters who didn't want to explore Kale's self-destruction and further abuse by an adult world he's ill-equipped to enter.

Disturbia still plays well, but the last 20 minutes are as predictable as the chase finale in Red Eye, the previous thriller written by Disturbia co-writer, Charles Ellsworth. Even composer Geoff Zanelli goes through Zimmerlisch suspense scoring conventions, and fails to add character subtext or some mordant wit.

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Dreamworks' DVD sports a sharp transfer, and straightforward extras featuring the film's enthusiastic cast & crew. A deleted scenes gallery includes mostly extended scenes, and the lack of any alternative ending or re-edit means the filmmakers at least had the conviction to shoot the ending they wanted to use, familiar as it is.

© 2007 Mark R. Hasan