After watching his dad die in an horrific auto accident former model teenager Kale (Shia LaBeouf, Holes) quickly becomes his school’s problem child, his latest misstep involving his right fist and a mouthy Spanish teacher. Now, for the next three months – the entirety of summer vacation – he is under house arrest, and if the kid steps just one inch outside of a the 100-foot perimeter around his abode a cadre of police officers will be more than happy to haul his delinquent butt over to a very real jail cell.

With little to do and even less room to do it, a stir-crazy Kale starts using all his high-tech toys to spy on his neighborhood’s residents. His chief object of attention is new next door neighbor Ashley (Sarah Roemer, The Grudge 2), but when she catches both him and his best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo, the short-lived WB series The Bedford Diaries) looking at her he’s positive you-know-what is about to hit the you-know-where.

Instead, much to Kale’s surprise she shows both an interest in him as well as in what he is doing, especially after they start focusing upon the peculiar Mr. Turner (David Morse, Contact). The kids start to suspect he might be a brutal murderer from Texas, living now in their suburban hideaway in order to quietly resuming his Club Girl-slaughtering ways. But he couldn’t really be a killer, could he? It’s just the stupefying boredom of captivity finally getting to him, right? Maybe, but seeing as his mom Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss, The Matrix trilogy) has suddenly caught Turner’s eye there’s no way Kale’s about to stop watching now.

It goes without saying that the fast funny and surprisingly entertaining thriller Disturbia is nothing more than just a teenage riff on Alfred Hitchcock’s immortal classic Rear Window. While this one doesn’t remotely compare, in its own limited freewheeling way the movie is actually quite entertaining. Christopher Landon (Blood and Chocolate) and Carl Ellsworth’s (Red Eye) script may have plot holes the size of elephants, it’s still so merrily winning and directed with such confident ease by D.J. Caruso (Two for the Money) it is far easier than normal to blindly look past them.

Do not take that to mean I’ve fallen head over heels in love. When I say it has plot holes I mean it, and some of the lapses in judgment (especially by members of the police department) border on the insulting. There are also a couple of moments where I actually had the passing thought Landon, Ellsworth and Caruso expected viewers to take all of this seriously, that their riffing on our ever-encroaching voyeuristic tendencies have weight and meaning beyond the thriller clichés this picture revels in.

Thankfully, the director keeps things moving so breathlessly and has cast his film so exceptionally well the highs definitely outweigh the number of lows. This movie is fun with a capitol “F,” the 100 or so minutes it runs flying by almost in the blink of an eye. The dialogue crackles, the suspense is palpable and LaBeouf makes for a surprisingly dashing choice to play a teenage action hero. I enjoyed myself immensely beginning to end, and considering how rarely that ever happens Disturbia automatically gets the keys to take up immediate residence in my cinematic condominium of breezily satisfying delights.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)