A young boy on house arrest is convienced that his neighbor is a kidnapper and a killer. Convinced he does his own private investigating to find out the truth. Will he uncover what's really going on next door or will he ultimately die... of boredom?
So the movie starts out with young Kale fishing with his dad, having some father son bonding time. It seems Kale's not much of an outdoorsman but his father reassures him that they are better off fishing than working. So they pack up and they are on the way home and Kale decides to call home to his mom to tell him about all the fish they caught, that old chestnut. So while being distracted by his dad and a road hog on the way home they get in a really bad wreck, flipping their suv into the middle of the road, when suddenly another vehicle slams into the passenger side of the vehicle killing his dad...and the credits roll.
We forward a year later with Kale at school where we find that his life went downhill. Sleeping in Spanish class, a class where he apparently doesn't study because he can't speak a lick of Spanish. Anyways his Spanish teacher gets in his face promising to fail him asking him what his father would think. BAM! Kale knocks her ass out, which I can understand, being that his dad died a year prior and he was still touchy about the subject. He gets house arrest for three months for the sucker punch, you know, the little black box on the ancle. Lucky kid stays home all day, playing Xbox 360, watching tv and eating junk food, making me wish I was on house arrest. Anyways his mom comes in and cuts off the Xbox live, iTunes and cuts the cord to his tv so he's got no choice but to clean and think about what he's done. Needless to say he cleans, but he sucks at it, and he spends his time alone in his house with nothing fun to do.
 
The next day he sees that he's got new neighbors when all of a sudden he hears the doorbell and goes to investigate finding a good old bag of flaming crap. So the kids that planted the crap bag start riding off on their bikes, Kale fast on their ass when he realises he's past the zone where he can leave. Cops come out of NOWHERE and toss him on the ground making him look like a fool in front of the new neighbors and their pretty young daughter.
At this point in the movie it seems like Kale's life pretty much sucks because he can't get out of the house or do...well...anything! So one night he's watching the neighbor girl in her window while she's doing yoga or something and he passes out. When he wakes up he goes to his room and jacks around when he realises there's a car backing up into the garage of his other neighbor, noticing that the car fits the description of a car reported to have been involved in a kidnapping. Well this sparks young Kale's interest and soon he's hot on the case trying to see if his neighbor is the kidnapper.
Convinced that his neighbor Robert Turner is the kidnapper and a cold blooded killer he, his buddy Ronnie and the neighbor girl Ashley all investigate him to see if he's really what he appears or if they are just assuming things without any evidence.
Now for the first half hour I could swear this movie is more of a love story but it turns into a pretty decent story. Of course it's really slow to go anywhere and it's not as extreme as I'd like it, it was alright. Shia LaBeouf, though posessing a really crappy name, was in a couple great flicks like Holes and Transformers so I was expecting him to do good again in this film, which he did. Of course he doesn't come across as a thriller kinda actor but hey, if Paris Hilton's ugly ass can be in a horror/thriller film then why the hell can't a kid from a Disney movie like Holes? Anyways toss in some cameos by David Morse and Trinity herself, Carrie-Anne Moss and your good to go.
Dramatic, clever and stylish this movie pushes out what the mainstream audiences want, and I'm ok with that. Not as much blood and guts as us horror fans want but the story makes up for the lack of guts.
A pretty decent flick, I normally would bash a movie like this but for some reason I wanted to keep watching it hoping to see some death and resolution. I got both.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: D.J. Caruso
WRITING CREDITS: Christopher B. Landon, Carl Ellsworth
GENRE: Horror, Thriller
CAST: Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, Carrie-Anne Moss
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 105 min
RATING: 6/10
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