Sai and Shujath talk Cinema

Shia LaBeouf (Transformers) plays a teenage version of the kid from Home Alone 3 in a Rear Window style voyeuristic adventure with the neighborhood serial killer suspect. Kale (sounds so much like ‘kill’) is under house arrest and not just figuratively (the reason for the arrest isn’t particularly noteworthy). He has a device attached to the foot that monitors his movements and if he crosses a certain radius around his house, the cops are alerted (and they show up in record time too except, of course, when most necessary). And then his behavior makes his mother turn into a dictator. That means no X-Box, no i-Tunes and even no television (parents can be so harsh nowadays!). So he puts to good use the two pairs of binoculars that he’s got lying around (not to mention the video camera) to spy on everyone around, particularly the newly moved-in neighborhood teen hottie. The hottie befriends him just around the time he starts taking interest in another neighbor, whom he suspects to be a serial killer from Texas. As their love blossoms, the mystery of the strange neighbor unfolds. Is he really a serial killer? Or is it just time to give back the kid his television?

Sarcasm aside, the predictable film does have its share of suspenseful moments and is definitely a much better watch than all those horror movies and torture porn flicks that are releasing with amazing regularity. Shia is watchable, Sarah Roemer provides the eye-candy and Aaron Yoo contributes with comic support. Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix Trilogy) turns mother for this one while David Morse (The Green Mile) is very effective playing the terror suspect and his voice modulation helps.

Anyone who might want to compare this to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window shouldn’t be watching at all. This film isn’t aiming for greatness but it is a reasonable summer suspense thriller aimed at youngsters. The recycled premise is still interesting enough but I just hope that the studios don’t start commissioning sequels due to its box-office success.