 Shia LaBeouf in Disturbia |
Shia LaBeouf started his acting career telling dirty jokes at a comedy house called The Ice House at the age of ten.
“I was told the only way to get [into the industry] was to be a model or to be a stand-up comedian, and I was not going to be a model,” LaBeouf said. “That’s how I got into comedy.”
According to LaBeouf, directors DJ Caruso (The Salton Sea) and Steve Spielberg created the idea for Disturbia as a combination of Rear Window, Say Anything and The Conversation. Writer Christopher Landon (Red Eye) combines violence with character development for an overall enjoyable thriller.
LaBeouf plays Kale, a teenage boy living in the suburbs. His life is shaken after his father dies next to him in a car crash. One day at school, a teacher references Kale’s father being disappointed in him — so Kale punches the teacher in the face. The punch creates the setup for the rest of the movie: a teenage boy is put under house arrest for the summer, and his only entertainment is to watch his neighbors go about their daily lives. Unfortunately for Kale, his next door neighbor just happens to be a serial killer.
As an update on a Hitchcock film, Disturbia may not live up to the standards of Rear Window. The plot is filled with holes, and there are some definite gaps in logic. The first act of the movie completely focuses on the characters and the storyline with no thriller aspect, while the second act abandons character development to focus entirely on suspenseful fight and chase scenes.
However, the quality of the movie’s characters make it worth seeing. The filmmakers spend plenty of time making the characters seem real. Kale and his best friend have as many conversations about girls and summer plans as they do about the crazy murderer next door. Carrie-Anne Moss, who played Trinity in The Matrix trilogy, manages to make interesting the seemingly flat role of Kale’s mother, as her concern for her troubled son seems genuine. Even Kale’s love interest, Ashley, has faults that bring her to life — even though the audience is introduced to her as the girl decorating the pool next door.
Though the performances are enjoyable, the movie’s violence is disturbing because it is focused entirely on women. Some of the scenes are just hard to sit through. At one point, Ashley sets a picture of a mummified, mutilated woman on Kale’s desk and declares that she’s hungry. This disregard for violence runs against against every message the College Feminists have been sending with both Take Back the Night and Sex Week — that violence against women is not okay, and apathy to such an issue is unacceptable.
Yes, the movie is about a serial killer, so naturally people have to die. Some people may have to be mutilated. But images of a senile older suburban man abusing and murdering women is over the top. It’s also a too-chilling reminder of the violence that many Northwestern students have spent the past two weeks speaking out against.
Overall, Disturbia is a fun way to spend a night at the movies, but be warned that some of the images may hit a little too close to home.
– Melissa Tussing
LaBeouf said gearing his humor towards an older crowd helped to entertain, even though the comedy club had to clear the place of alcohol because a ten-year-old was present.
“Already you’re starting with enemies ‘cause some people aren’t there to hear comedy, they’re there to drink,” LaBeouf said, “so little Billy’s got to talk about his willy, and then you got a joke…”
These days, LaBeouf, the star of Disturbia, tries to present himself as an adult. He’s only half-convincing, though. He speaks seriously about his past, his choice of roles and his influences, but the energetic way he speaks with his hands and his appreciation of System of a Down give him away. As he talks about watching people mosh in the balcony of a System concert, his jacket sleeve shifts, revealing a tattoo on his wrist. It’s a timeline mapping out his childhood from 1986 to 2004.
Many college students remember LaBeouf as Louis from the Disney Channel show Even Stevens. LaBeouf said that working for Disney Channel allowed him to fulfill a dream, but his role as an outlandish little brother didn’t involve much opportunity for growth as an actor.
“At 12 or 13, all you want to do in life is have a food fight,” he said. “You don’t want to go to school or do math homework… You want to jump in a vat full of chili and swim around like a moron. Those are childhood dreams I got to experience all the time.”
Disney, however, limited the depth of his acting.
“It’s debilitating for an actor because there’s not many places you can go,” he said. “There are not many textures and shades you can go as an actor on Disney Channel. It’s like vaudeville… It’s very big and broad. Life’s not like that.”
While working on the movie Holes, LaBeouf met actor John Voight, who became his mentor. LaBeouf said Voight’s influence completely changed his perception of acting.
“I was introduced to what [acting] could be and the magic of it,” LaBeouf said. “I watched a lot of Dustin Hoffman and watched a lot of Voight, and you start seeing that these dudes are magicians. There was this beauty to not having to be yourself. Playing other people and being able to get away from yourself. It was therapeutic.”
Voight introduced LaBeouf to several books on the methods of acting, but his favorite is Michael Caine’s Acting in Film. In the book, Caine gives step-by-step instructions on how to handle different roles in a movie, how to handle doing nothing on screen while still looking human, how to be an extra and how to deliver one line.
LaBeouf said he now looks to Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Dustin Hoffman as inspiration for his acting career. Their influence encourages him to choose diverse acting roles for himself.
“You do the same thing twice even and you become ‘that guy’” he said. “I want to be Dustin Hoffman. I want to be able to do everything. I don’t want to get typed. I don’t want to get locked down in one thing, be the funny guy or the dark guy or any of that. I don’t want to get shoeboxed. I want Michael Caine’s life. I want to be working when I’m 70 doing different things. That’s the goal.”