Shia LeBeouf stars in "Disturbia."

Movie Review's

By: David Coley

Posted: 4/16/07

In Theaters

'Disturbia'

When I describe the plot of "Disturbia," one obvious film from the past is going to leap to mind, if you've seen it. I'll go ahead and tell you what it is: Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window." That film features James Stewart as a wheelchair-bound man who witnesses foul deeds in the adjacent apartment building and decides to act on his suspicions with the help of his friends.

With a frame of reference of such pedigree, one might expect good things from "Disturbia." Indeed, at the beginning you almost get the sense that the filmmakers are also going to throw in interesting commentary on violence encroaching onto middle-class American life: A happy family scene ends in a frightening and devastating car crash; violence erupts in a classroom.

Such a combination of thematic relevance and cinematic reference would have made the film interesting, if the filmmakers had stuck to their guns. Sadly, you can almost hear artistic principles shattering as the movie descends from such heights hinted at early into the workings of your average teen horror flick.

The film stars Shia LaBeouf as Kale, a high school student who has recently lost his father and has fallen into a pattern of violence and apathy. After assaulting one of his teachers, he is sentenced to house arrest for his entire summer vacation, under the watchful eye of the police and his mother Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss). With so much downtime, Kale quickly discovers the joys of voyeurism.

First on his hit list is new next-door neighbor Ashley (Sarah Roemer). After she notices him spying on her, she decides to make friends with him and the two form a relationship. These scenes are most likely the lowest point of the movie. There is no reason - other than those pertaining to marketing and target audiences - that this subplot should be a part of the film. It seems as if the filmmakers had just assumed that there had to be some romance, so they threw it in. It drags the pace down and distracts from the ideas.

Soon Kale and Ashley, along with friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), start to suspect that neighbor Mr. Turner (David Morse) might be responsible for a series of kidnappings and killings that have been on the news. The evidence starts mounting up, but every attempt at exposing the killer leads to a dead end. He has covered his tracks well, and because Kale cannot go beyond his front yard, high-tech surveillance must be used - a little unfair: Jimmy Stewart never had live Web casting.

The protracted climax in the last 20 minutes marks the film definitively as a cheap horror movie. People are put in danger, they escape, are put in danger again, and so on. The story wraps up too nicely, and obvious moral conundrums dealing with voyeurism and violence are quickly glossed over.

The filmmakers seem to forget that when violence of the magnitude they portray hits a group of people, nothing wraps up as tidily as they would like us to believe.

In Theaters

'The Hoax'

It is important to note right at the start that this film is not necessarily based on a true story. Yes, the events in question did happen, but the words "Based on the book by Clifford Irving" are central to understanding the way the events are depicted. Because this is a story being told by someone we will come to find is a very great liar, it puts a spin on our view of the film's reality. The man behind "The Hoax" might just be putting another one over on the unsuspecting public.

Because you cannot implicitly trust the source material, this gives the film rich depths to exploit the central conceit of the story in many ways. There are conspiracy theories thrown in that seem like Irving's way of explaining or justifying his forgery of an autobiography by eccentric aviation mogul Howard Hughes. We get glimpses of delusions that might shed light on Irving's motives in the scandal. Should we take these as facts, desperate attempts to exonerate himself, or just clever tricks from a master of deception?

Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) starts the film as a struggling author whose most notable work is a poor-selling profile on an art forger (footage and commentary on both these figures can be found in the Orson Welles film "F For Fake"). In a last grasp for survival, Gere promises his editor Andrea (Hope Davis) the most important book of the 20th century, and to make good on this promise he concocts a scheme, with the help of his friend Don (Alfred Molina), to forge Hughes' account of his own life.

Because Hughes is so notably eccentric, Irving's ways of covering his tracks succeed even better than he hopes for. As he tells Don, "The more outrageous I sound, the more convincing I am." Soon, covering the truth becomes harder and harder, and he ends up putting his wife Edith (Marcia Gay Harden) in danger, as well as implicating Don. Hughes begins to try to discredit the book, and some of the aforementioned conspiracies come to light, one involving Richard Nixon (according to this film, Irving's book is responsible for Watergate). These mysterious forces, whether they actually interacted with Irving or not, contribute, along with his constant lying, to his downfall.

Despite the film being about a lie, director Lasse Hallström is able to maintain a very realistic feel throughout, staving off the melodrama that he lapsed into with "The Cider House Rules." The look of the film seems to match the '70s setting. Irving's flights of possible fantasy match the tone and pace almost seamlessly, making it hard to tell fantasy from reality without some serious thinking. It's as it should be: the truth is not handed to you; instead you have to work for it.

Richard Gere delivers a very strong performance, making both his portrayal and Irving's lies completely believable. He pulls us onto his side; after all, what good would it be to make a story about a con man that you didn't want to succeed? Both the fake autobiography and the reality presented in this film, with the help of the filmmakers, make Irving one of the supreme con artists of all time.

dcoley@unews.com