| “ | “No, I got something to show you! This is the reality without the TV. There's a world right outside my window. Look, look, look, look, look." | „ |
| ~ Kale Bretch. |
Kale Brecht is the main protagonist of Disturbia. He is a 17-year-old teenager, the son of Daniel and Julie Brecht, Ashley's boyfriend, Ronnie's best friend, Robert Turner's archenemy / neighbor
He is portrayed by Shia LaBeouf who also portrays Sam Witwicky in Transformers saga. LaBeouf also won a Teen Choice Award for his performance as Kale.
Biography[]
After a year in the result of his father's death in a car accident, Kale Brecht assaults his Spanish teacher, Señor Gutierrez after he made a personal remark about Kale's deceased father. Kale was up to serving one year in a juvenile detention center, but the judge cuts him a break because he knows what's it's like to lose a relative as he sentences Kale to 3 months under house arrest. Kale is secured with an ankle bracelet and only allowed 100 feet from the house. As a result, Kale's frustrated mother Julie cancels his XBOX Live and iTunes account as well as cutting off the TV cable in order for him to get his act together, as Kale experiences chronic boredom as he makes a Tower of Twinkies and keeps scratching his itchy bracelet. Kale then starts spying on his neighbors in the neighborhood and his new neighbor, Ashley Carlson. Kale and his best friend, Ronnie do some research on Robert Turner as strange events happen at his house. Kale starts suspecting that Turner is a serial killer.
Kale uses binoculars and a video camera flash. Kale then gets blueprints on Turner's house, which indict that a big part of Turner's house now, wasn't there when he first moved in. After sending Ronnie to go into Turner's house, Kale tries to rescue Ronnie, but the police hear Kale out and Turner lets them check out the garage, but all they find is a dead deer. When Kale sees the videotape of Ronnie running in Turner's house, Kale notices a dead body in the air vent. As Kale yells Ronnie's name, Ronnie is knocked out by Turner and Kale gets in a struggle with Turner as Kale tries to turn off the monitor and leave the crossing line of his house, but Turner stops him and knocks Kale out and gags him up with duct tape. Turner then goes over his plan of framing Kale for murdering Ronnie and soon Juile. But luckily, Ashley comes to the house and gives Kale time to subdue Turner. After leaving the house, Kale goes to Turner's house and finds a decay of dead bodies, and his mother in Turner's basement tied up. Turner finally loses his temper then appears, slashes Kale with a knife, and foolishly proclaims that Kale made him do this, just as he's about to finally kill Kale, Julie then stabs Turner in the leg which gives Kale the chance to kill Turner with a pair of gardening shears.
Offscreen, Julie reconciled with Kale after foolishly and selfishly not believing him and could've gotten him killed. Kale is then taken off house arrest early for "good behavior” and he is reunited with Ashley, now his girlfriend. As Kale finally gets revenge on the Greenwood Boys and Kale is last seen kissing Ashley. It can also be implied that he is able to finally get his electronic privileges back after being grounded.
Personality[]
Through a large portion of the movie, Kale is shown to be edgy, hot-tempered and stubborn right after he lost his father in a car accident. In that time Kale is known as a joker who has a strong relationship with his father, but he was still impatient as shown by his struggled to retrieve a fish in the beginning of the film.
He was seen getting quite agitated and wanted to catch the fish quickly, this gives us an insight into his personality because Kale gets himself into trouble a year later, and we are going to see how agitated and impatient he is going to get. We see as they were driving home Kale was on the phone to his mother, they had a good relationship and Kale's father and Kale were joking around with his Mother (Mrs. Brecht) you can tell that they have a close relationship and they are a close family with a strong loving bond. Kale and his father were suddenly involved in a car accident in which sadly Kale's father dies.
After his father's death, Kale Brecht becomes sullen, withdrawn, and troubled so much so that he finds himself under a court-ordered sentence of house arrest after a run in with the law. His mother, Julie, works night and day to support herself and her son, only to be met with indifference and lethargy. Mrs. Brecht starts making a stand against her rebellious and stubborn son. She does this by cancelling his Xbox and Itunes account, as well as cutting off the TV cable, leading Kale to suffer from chronic boredom already establishing from the beginning he is not very patient. The walls of his house begin to close in on Kale, He becomes a voyeur as his interests turn outside the windows of his suburban home towards those of his neighbours.
His friend Ronnie Chu is a joker a class clown who seems to love playing pranks on his friends. Him and Kale have a close friendship, you can tell this as when Kale is home he calls his friend Ronnie over to keep him company, his reaction as Ronnie enters was a feeling of relief as Kale was becoming more irritated and uneasy about the boredom. This shows he that they have strong bond resulting in fun times when they are around each other also taking in that Ronnie is a lively and a entertaining character.
Similarly to Mrs. Brecht who is struggling a year later, she looks very tired and is disappointed with Kale and the things he has been getting into. However, boredom takes over for kale, a new girl called Ashley, she's new in the neighbourhood and Kale is attracted to her. Ashley seems to have changed kale, kale has started becoming more friendly and gives less attitude to his mother and starts using his binoculars to observe Ashley. Ashley seems to realise that kale is watching her but doesn't seem that bothered. We observe Ashley through Kales binoculars and see that Ashley doesn't really like being in the area and she hasn't got a close relationship with her parents, we also see that kale is interested with his neighbours especially Robert Turner.
Robert Turner isn't shown much in the opening scenes but we get an insight into his way of life. He loves mowing his grass therefore he likes things to be kept well, tidy and organised. He mows his grass about twice a day, he is not like his other neighbours he is a little bit strange. In addition whilst Kale is looking out of the window he notices that Mr. Turner was parking a mustang with an identical dent in the front of his bumper as the one reported in the news, this makes us and Kale suspicious also leading us to suspect that he may be the Protagonist.
During the middle scene Kale starts settling down, his attitude and behaviour has decreased, probably the result of Ashley moving around as his neighbour who he likes, moreover he is keeping himself occupied by taking more interests in his surroundings. He is therefore getting on with his Mother better and they seem to be getting closer as in the beginning he was portrayed as a rebellious and selfish teenager after his father died, however we still liked Kale and felt sympathetic towards him, although now that he has changed his ways a little, it makes us like him even more making us want him not to go downhill, we want him to succeed as the antagonist. Kale and Ashley have become closer friends now, she wants to be involved in what Kale and Ronnie are doing however she isn't taking it too seriously. Kale is still quite suspicious of Mr. Turner so are the audience at this time. Kale tries to threaten Turner whilst he showed up in his house as his mothers tier seemed to need replacing, Kale is very jumpy whilst with Mr. Turner, Kale tries to threaten Mr. Turner however it didn't seem to work out as planned as Turner intimidates him. Kale is starting to become very perplexed as things that he once thought were happening keep changing, for example the dented bumper it somehow vanishes from Turner's car making us wonder is he actually the protagonist?
However, there is more evidence to believe that his is the protagonist as he seems to know a lot about knives, we already know that Mr. Turner is a strange character by him mowing his lawn daily. In addition not just anyone knows about knives and their purposes it builds up on the suspense in the film. Also we see him buying shovels adding on to the mystery. He is very intimidating as when Kale tried to threaten Mr. Turner he responded back that yeah sometimes I wanted to kill my teachers, also he tries Intimidating Ashley whilst she got caught in the car showing that he likes to be more powerful than others and that he is a mean malicious character. He seems to know that he is being watched and uses Ashley to try and get through to Kale.
During the ending scene Ronny seems to go missing whilst in Mr. Turner's house, so Kale goes in to go and try and find his friend. However obviously this triggers a note to the police that Kale is out of his house arrest limit. When the police arrives he tells them to check the house and the garage at this point were feeling jubilant for Kale as this is the time Mr. Turner is finally going to be caught however our emotions drop with Kale as the police do not find anything just a dead dear. Kale is then taken back home and his mother goes round to Mr Turner's house to apologise. All of a sudden we witness something happen to Kales mum so this time Kale does go over to the house, even though it triggers off a signal to the police Kale went into the Turner's house. We witness with Kale a dead bodies in he vents and a secret room which is engulfed in darkness adding to the suspense and tension. We see that Kale is a very brave and heroic character as he went in to go save his mother. Kales falls into a pit of water and see's even more corpses, he eventually finds his mother and Turner who at the time is keeping her hostage, he had his knife and we realise all along that he was the protagonist and we want the antagonist Kale to succeed and kill him in which he does. Kale as a reward for his bravery had his clamp taken off him and his mother are definitely much more happier and loving making it a happy ending for us all.
Bibliography []
https://rohanshorimedia.weebly.com/
Gallery[]
Kale
