Netflix And Chill: Disturbia (2007)

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, and Disturbia can be summed up in one great pitch. It's a teen riff on Rear Window. There you go. It doesn't try to outdo that classic, an aim I think many of us agree would be nigh on impossible, but it very overtly works with the premise, making use of many modern gadgets that can add some extra thrills.

Shia LaBeouf plays Kale, a young man placed under house arrest after punching his Spanish teacher in the face. The main officer who helps to monitor the fitting of his electronic ankle bracelet is Officer Gutierrez (Jose Pablo Cantillo), a relative of the aforementioned teacher. Carrie-Anne Moss is Julie, the exasperated mother who tries to ensure house arrest isn't spent with videogames and iTunes, and Kale's best friend is a young man named Ronnie (Aaron Yoo). There are two neighbours who Kale takes an interest in. One is new, and her name is Ashley (Sarah Roemer). The other is Mr. Turner (David Morse), a man who seems to match a few of the details being read out on the news regarding a killer in the city. It's not long until Kale, Ronnie, and Ashley are working together to observe Mr. Turner with much more scrutiny.

Everyone here has done work that I have enjoyed, for the most part. Director D. J. Caruso tends to make solid entertainment, although this is one of his better films, and writers Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth have a filmography that mixes in a number of horror franchise instalments and some fun teen fare. Again, this is one of their better films, but there is more competition over which one would be considered their very best.

LaBeouf does very well in the lead role, he's just the right mix of angry teen and good kid. Roemer is a winning female co-star, although I am not surprised that she didn't go on from this to bag any major roles because she doesn't quite have enough of IT, whatever it is. Yoo is, like LaBeouf, pretty perfect at being an ass at times without making you hate him. But if this was just a teen film with the teens doing decent work it would be okay. The adult stars take it up a level. Moss is great in the mom role, one that could have easily been completely thankless, but Landon and Ellsworth write her a bit better than that. Cantillo does well in his small role, personally interested in the "criminal" kid, but also doing his job with due care and diligence. And then you get Morse. Morse is one of the best actors of his generation, a deceptively low-key performer who can take on a wide variety of roles. This is arguably one of his most fun turns, and he maintains a small, Andy Dufresne-like, smirk throughout much of the runtime.

Some of the plot devices are a bit silly, and there's one extended sequence featuring Yoo in the second half of the movie that really falls flat when it is intended to be a strange extra thrilling set-piece, but the energy, the obvious love for the central idea, and the collection of enjoyable performances all make this one of the best teen thrillers of the past few decades.

8/10

You can buy the disc here.
Americans can buy it here.

xXx: Return Of Xander Cage (2017)

Taking a leaf from the later instalments of the Fast & Furious franchise, this third film in the xXx series gives the lead role back to Vin Diesel, as you may have guessed from the title, and surrounds him with a bit of an all-star cast of people who bring various specialist skills to the table.

Xander Cage (Diesel) is asked to help once again when the world is endangered, this time by a group of people who have stolen a device that can control weather satellites. The danger of the situation is made apparent when one such satellite is sent on a crash course to Earth. Reluctant to help "the man", represented this time by Jane Marke (Toni Collette), Cage eventually agrees to do what he does best, on one condition; he gets to pick his team. It's not long until they're facing off against a group of equally talented fighters, but who are the real villains at work?

Directed by D. J. Caruso, xXx: Return Of Xander Cage has three major elements working in its favour. First of all, Caruso himself does well at the helm, working from a fun script by F. Scott Frazier that perfectly blends laughs and enjoyable action set-pieces. I've liked pretty much everything I have seen directed by Caruso, and this keeps his track record consistent for me.

Second, the tone of this is just perfect. The first two xXx movies tried to show that they were working with tongue in cheek, yet it never quite worked, and I think that's because at the heart of each storyline was a hero who wasn't ever really seen to be in on the joke. Diesel, in this instance, has more fun as he gets to play up the legend of his character while bantering with others who share his sense of recklessness, and that works really well.

Third, the cast. Diesel may not be the best thespian around but he knows how to strut around onscreen like someone with such a big ego, even when he's interacting with martial arts stars like Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa (who both get some decent onscreen moments, and I was impressed by how much screentime Yen actually got). Collette is fine as the suit in charge, Nina Dobrev is a lot of fun as the tech support worker who gets flustered around our hero, and Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, and Rory McCann are all good additions to the series, either individually or thanks to how they are teamed up with others.

It may have been a high benchmark to exceed, but it's still surprising just how much more entertaining this film is compared to the two that preceded it. It is, in a way, exactly how this series should have been working from the very beginning. If you disliked the other films then still give this one a try. If you enjoyed the other films, albeit to varying degrees, then definitely check this one out. By the time you get past the main opening sequences (one involving Neymar, one involving a daring raid, and one involving Diesel jumping and skating around at breakneck speeds) then you will know what you have let yourself in for, and you will probably already be grinning.

7/10.

The Bluray is available here.
Americans can buy it here.