Review of “Disturbia” & “Perfect Stranger”
Rarely do I reveal a spoiler about a film in a review. No matter how bad the film. Today is an exception.
There is something about Perfect Stranger that just gets my craw. So, soon enough I will reveal the totally improbable denouement.
The film rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning. Halle Berry plays a reporter, who either quits or gets fired or both from her newspaper job after a story of hers about a sexual predator politician is quashed. Her acting in the first few scenes is sophomoric. Literally. She wouldn’t have made the cut for the school play. “Sorry, Halle,” the teacher would have said, “keep working on your acting chops. Maybe, by the time you’re a senior, you’ll make the grade.”
Her thespian acumen doesn’t improve much as the film regresses.
Then there’s Giovanni Ribisi. He plays her best pal, a creepy computer geek, who is obviously smitten with Halle. To no avail. She’s got a boyfriend, who it turns out has been boffing a childhood gal pal of hers. Oh yeah, that friend gets whacked. Halle thinks the murderer is Bruce Willis, a major ad exec with a propensity to diddle about on his wife.
Berry takes a temp job at his agency. (I’m not sure why I’m going into so much of the plot. Guess it’s due to the fact that I’m going to tell you the ending, so I might as well reveal the rest.) Willis comes on to her. Duh.
So the killer could be Willis. Or Ribisi. Or Willis’s jealous and knowing wife. Or Willis’s leggy and lovely Lesbian administrative assistant. Hints are dropped here and there that it might be anyone of those characters.
But noooooooooooo!!! (Here comes the spoiler.) The doer of the dastardly deed is Berry herself. Of course, nothing in the film indicates that might be the case whatsoever. Nothing. Nary a hint. So they movie moves along in one direction, then in the last five minutes has to explain a back story that is totally new, and inconsistent with everything that has gone on before.
It really pissed me off. So I reveal all to you, in hopes you’ll spend your movie-going budget on something more worthy.
* * * * *
Disturbia is one of the great film titles in awhile. I love portmanteau, which is what it is called when two words are put together to make one. Disturbia is one of the best.
Here Shia LaBeouf is stuck at home with an ankle bracelet because he punched out his Spanish teacher. So we’ve got a Rear Window situation. His mom has cut off his iPod account and his IM capabilities, so he’s left to spying out the windows of his suburban house. He zones in on the new hottie who moved next door. They, of course, become pals, then BF/ GF. His only other friend is Aaron Yoo.
There’s a stalker in their town, who is picking up women at bars then going Silence of the Lambs on them. Our gang think it’s another neighbor, a quietly menacing David Morse.
Do you think it’s going to be him? Well, I’ll never tell. What kind of film reviewer would reveal the end of a flick? 
What I will say is that LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, who plays the neighbor gal, and Yoo all react in a manner consistent with their ages and place in life. It was refreshing. I found that an endearing quality in a film that doesn’t offer up too many surprises. It’s pretty much a pat plot, with better than average execution.
Disturbia does get extra credit for the boffo title, even if the opening sequences — scenes that aren’t really necessary for the plot — are too violent.
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