Having more or less raided Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window for their previous hit collaboration, indeed pilfered the 1954 classic to such an extent that the copyright-wielding heirs to source writer Cornell Woollrich’s estate are suing the production (though the litigants really should have been screenwriter John Michael Hayes and Hitchcock himself), the team of director D. J. Caruso and and actor Scheisse LaBarf have picked out another Hitchcock epic for their latest inspiration, Eagle Eye.

While in Disturbia, Caruso and credited screenwriters Christopher Landon and Carl Ellsworth contrived laboriously to make LaBarf a home-bound teen, from which perch he grew to suspect a neighbor as a serial killer, in Eagle Eye, LaBarf is a slacker kid of loose morals who finds himself thrust into a large espionage caper much bigger than his anonymous, ordinary little self can handle. Seemingly picked at random, rather than by an accident of misidentification as in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, LaBarf is forced instantly to go on the run as a suspect in the eyes of the authorities, his only communication that which he has with an all-powerful female voice on the other end of a cellular phone, who also has the ability to make Times Square reader boards change their messages to give LaBarf quick guidance and to make all the cellular telephones in the same subway car ring simultaneously with the same bit of discomforting news, among other, even more dangerous accomplishments. With its capitol setting, battling bureaucrats, and sense of satellites hovering over us at all times to mess up out petty stupid lives, Eagle Eye forms an unfunny companion to the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading.

These unofficial adaptations of Hitchcock films appear to be a good idea. Disturbia made about $120 million dollars worldwide, while Eagle Eye had a good opening of about $40 million (just under a quarter of its budget). Eagle Eye’s success seems contingent less on its pedigree and heritage, however, than on the fact that it pushes all the same buttons pressed by all the other chaotic action films of the day (ultimately, pilfered premises are for pitch meetings, not for the people in the audience). Though Eagle Eye has four credited writers (John Glenn, Travis Adam Wright, Hillary Seitz, Dan McDermott), the film is touted as inspired by an idea that came into the head of Steven Spielberg, also one of the film’s producers, a man so busy that he must pass out his brainstorms to others like pedophiles dispense ice cream, and the less dense viewer assumes that this clever idea comes down to the rather clever reason why LaBarf’s Jerry Shaw was really plucked out of the crowd in the first place. However, the cleverness of Spielberg’s premise does not make up for the chaos and impenetrability of the second-unit-dominated action sequences.

If the first half is Hitchcock’s NxNW, the second half is Kubrick’s 2001, as the main, or mainframe, villain turns out to be a computer gone mad. This computer yells at LaBarf and Monaghan the way audiences usually yell at the main characters in horror films, telling them futilely what to do next. Perhaps the filmmakers were also under the inspiration of ’70s paranoia movies such as Parallax View and others. As this column has mentioned before, however, as much as filmmakers make love the films of the ’70s, the audiences of the ’70s weren’t so fond of them, rushing to Won Ton Ton the Dog That Saved Hollywood, while the film buffs were sitting hunched virtually alone in neighborhood theaters watching Badlands.

A good cast, that includes Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson, are wasted amid the carnage, but not in the usual sense. Their anonymity has more to do with the programatic quadfurcation of the film into alternating scenes of action and plot advancement, “character development” and bureaucracy bashing.

Scheisse LaBarf, on the other hand, is a protegee of Steven Spielberg, and is another one of those indistinguishable stars whom the media industrial complex periodically attempts to ram down our throats as the newest big star. LaBarf’s movies do make money, Hollywood tells us, so it appears that the strategy of simply saying he is a star works, for in the city of dreams what is said to be so, is so. Thus he is a star, whether we want him or not (I personally know of no one who goes to a film specifically because LaBarf is in it). The very last moments of the film bear some evidence of market research-based decisions on narrative resolution, as apparently the idea of giving one’s life for one’s country is a very good one theoretically, but still, if you want your movie to make money, the hero must survive to the credits.

LaBarf’s obligatory partner in faked crime is sexless-in-the-city girl Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), who also seems at first plucked at random from the faceless crowd, but who also turns out to have unknowing ties to the conspiracy. Unfortunately, though her role is ultimately important, it’s difficult to fight for screen space against a camera biased in favor of LaBarf and a litany of distracting and screen dominating cars, subways, airplanes, and even high tension wire rigs. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that Monaghan would be paired with LaBarf, given that one of the last remnants of the old studio system is the notion that all stars have chemistry with each other and that we the audiences are all dying to see each of them eventually united with each other seriatim. Since becoming a “star,” LaBarf’s screen partners have been Lindsay Lohan, Sarah Roemer, Megan Fox, Cate Blanchett, while since Monaghan has been willing foisted upon us the cute Sante in short skirt and boots in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, she has been set-up chemistry-free with Tom Cruise, Casey Affleck, Ben Stiller, and Patrick Dempsey.

Though Eagle Eye had potential to embrace the harder edge of the great ’70s paranoia thrillers, it just couldn’t tear itself away from the rigid techniques of the day, which leave the viewer exhausted and confused. In the end, the eye surveying the now old hat tropes of this programatic thriller is more meager than eager.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Reel Politique - Film columnist DK Holm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.