Knight at the Movies Archives
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Shia LaBeouf helps enliven a teenage Rear Window while Halle Berry picks another bad starring vehicle
Shia LaBeouf has that hard to explain Jimmy Stewart-Tom Hanks-Everyman quality that is so highly coveted by movie audiences and
so rarely found. Rarer still to find such qualities in such a young actor. But LaBeouf – who has quickly risen from an interesting indie
to medium budget status actor to the next hot thing – has these likeable, guy next door traits in spades. Audiences will next see
him at the helm of the 4th of July alien invasion blockbuster, Transformers, and he has just been announced to play Harrison Ford’s
son in the forthcoming Indiana Jones sequel.
But before full-fledged stardom descends, LaBeouf is testing his leading man wings with the mystery-thriller Disturbia which utilizes
his nice, decent guy qualities. As the movie begins LaBeouf as Kale is on a nice fishing trip with his dad in the mountains but on the
way home Kale’s father is killed in a devastating car accident. (Sidenote: As Hollywood’s technical prowess has grown, so has its
ability to present everyday horrors. But nothing, it seems to me, can trump their capacity to show the realism of car wrecks and I’ve
quickly learned to look away to avoid having to see the carnage. This is a backhanded compliment to the special effects crews, I
guess.)
A year after the car accident guilt, anger and depression have left Kale an embittered loner who’s always getting into scrapes with the
law. When he finally goes too far and punches out a nasty schoolteacher, a fed up judge orders him to endure a period of house
arrest. At first Kale loves being home while his pretty but frustrated mother (Carrie-Ann Moss) heads off to work each day. He
binges on junk food, cable, web porn, and video games until mama gets fed up and suspends his cable and internet access. Kale
now turns onto a new game – one in which he becomes the nosy neighbor who spies on everyone and knows all their secrets. He
also figures out the boundaries of his imprisonment – an inch further outside the yard and his ankle bracelet will alert the authorities
that he’s out of bounds.
Kale has one friend and unfortunately it is the supremely annoying Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), a techie geek who loves to pull practical
jokes on his incarcerated pal and is perhaps the most annoying sidekick in recent memory. When a new shapely blonde teenage
girl, Ashley (Sarah Roemer) moves in next door they focus their spying skills on her. And what healthy teenage heterosexual male
wouldn’t? Ashley struts around in a bikini and doesn’t think twice about disrobing in front of her uncurtained windows but she’s also
no dummy and quickly figures out what Kale and Ronnie are up to. She starts hanging out with the duo, joking that they’re on a
stake-out and soon they really are. They’ve seen TV news reports of missing girls found dead and the M.O. matches up with a
suspicious male neighbor. Have our trio stumbled upon a serial killer in the midst of “Desperate Housewives” territory?
The rest of Disturbia, a modern update – with hormones raging – of the Nancy Drew-Hardy Boys mysteries finds our intrepid
investigators trying to answer that question. The result is a somewhat enjoyable and somewhat dopey movie – a sort of teenage
Rear Window (with aspects of American Beauty thrown in for good measure); a nice little date movie for a not too demanding audience.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For an audience to enjoy Halle Berry’s latest misstep, Perfect Stranger, however, their expectations must be dropped much, much
lower. The movie, a tepid thriller that further tarnishes Berry’s career, has such mixed up characters that their motivations defy
explanation. Berry plays an “ace” investigative reporter who begins the film by presenting a closeted Republican senator with the
news that she’s gotten a page to go on record about a gay affair and asking for comment. But the senator pays off the paper and
the story’s killed. Now what? Well, an old acquaintance of Berry’s hands her evidence that points to a kinky affair with a married
advertising mogul (Bruce Willis) and then winds up dead. Berry, with the aid of her sycophantic research assistant and computer whiz
(Giovanni Ribisi) decides to delve into the case and see if Willis is responsible. So far so okay but most of what follows is far from it.
Perfect Stranger, which proceeds in fits and starts and never really finds the proper pacing, gives validity to the long debated
existence of an Oscar curse. How else to explain yet another bad Halle Berry driven movie, her third since her triumph in Monster’s
Ball?
so rarely found. Rarer still to find such qualities in such a young actor. But LaBeouf – who has quickly risen from an interesting indie
to medium budget status actor to the next hot thing – has these likeable, guy next door traits in spades. Audiences will next see
him at the helm of the 4th of July alien invasion blockbuster, Transformers, and he has just been announced to play Harrison Ford’s
son in the forthcoming Indiana Jones sequel.
But before full-fledged stardom descends, LaBeouf is testing his leading man wings with the mystery-thriller Disturbia which utilizes
his nice, decent guy qualities. As the movie begins LaBeouf as Kale is on a nice fishing trip with his dad in the mountains but on the
way home Kale’s father is killed in a devastating car accident. (Sidenote: As Hollywood’s technical prowess has grown, so has its
ability to present everyday horrors. But nothing, it seems to me, can trump their capacity to show the realism of car wrecks and I’ve
quickly learned to look away to avoid having to see the carnage. This is a backhanded compliment to the special effects crews, I
guess.)
A year after the car accident guilt, anger and depression have left Kale an embittered loner who’s always getting into scrapes with the
law. When he finally goes too far and punches out a nasty schoolteacher, a fed up judge orders him to endure a period of house
arrest. At first Kale loves being home while his pretty but frustrated mother (Carrie-Ann Moss) heads off to work each day. He
binges on junk food, cable, web porn, and video games until mama gets fed up and suspends his cable and internet access. Kale
now turns onto a new game – one in which he becomes the nosy neighbor who spies on everyone and knows all their secrets. He
also figures out the boundaries of his imprisonment – an inch further outside the yard and his ankle bracelet will alert the authorities
that he’s out of bounds.
Kale has one friend and unfortunately it is the supremely annoying Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), a techie geek who loves to pull practical
jokes on his incarcerated pal and is perhaps the most annoying sidekick in recent memory. When a new shapely blonde teenage
girl, Ashley (Sarah Roemer) moves in next door they focus their spying skills on her. And what healthy teenage heterosexual male
wouldn’t? Ashley struts around in a bikini and doesn’t think twice about disrobing in front of her uncurtained windows but she’s also
no dummy and quickly figures out what Kale and Ronnie are up to. She starts hanging out with the duo, joking that they’re on a
stake-out and soon they really are. They’ve seen TV news reports of missing girls found dead and the M.O. matches up with a
suspicious male neighbor. Have our trio stumbled upon a serial killer in the midst of “Desperate Housewives” territory?
The rest of Disturbia, a modern update – with hormones raging – of the Nancy Drew-Hardy Boys mysteries finds our intrepid
investigators trying to answer that question. The result is a somewhat enjoyable and somewhat dopey movie – a sort of teenage
Rear Window (with aspects of American Beauty thrown in for good measure); a nice little date movie for a not too demanding audience.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For an audience to enjoy Halle Berry’s latest misstep, Perfect Stranger, however, their expectations must be dropped much, much
lower. The movie, a tepid thriller that further tarnishes Berry’s career, has such mixed up characters that their motivations defy
explanation. Berry plays an “ace” investigative reporter who begins the film by presenting a closeted Republican senator with the
news that she’s gotten a page to go on record about a gay affair and asking for comment. But the senator pays off the paper and
the story’s killed. Now what? Well, an old acquaintance of Berry’s hands her evidence that points to a kinky affair with a married
advertising mogul (Bruce Willis) and then winds up dead. Berry, with the aid of her sycophantic research assistant and computer whiz
(Giovanni Ribisi) decides to delve into the case and see if Willis is responsible. So far so okay but most of what follows is far from it.
Perfect Stranger, which proceeds in fits and starts and never really finds the proper pacing, gives validity to the long debated
existence of an Oscar curse. How else to explain yet another bad Halle Berry driven movie, her third since her triumph in Monster’s
Ball?
So-So and Uh-Oh:
Disturbia-Perfect Stranger
Expanded Edition of 4-11-07 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Disturbia-Perfect Stranger
Expanded Edition of 4-11-07 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.
