D.J. Caruso has high hopes for 'Eagle Eye'

Caruso, whose latest film, a combustible thriller called "Eagle Eye," opens Friday, recently returned to the din of the venerable depot, smiling as he watched the waves of arriving passengers, among them an elderly man in an electric-blue silk suit and a woman with twin boys, sullen and tethered by leashes like a pair of sad poodles.

He loves the architecture of this rambling edifice, as well as the fact that "Blade Runner" was shot here, "but my favorite thing is watching the people who get on and off trains, watching them greet each other," the 43-year-old director said. "I would watch them and make up stories for them. Everyone is going from point A to point B. There are times when it gets quiet and then there's a surge of people. Each person is a story, and I love thinking about that."

Humble beginnings

CARUSO IS writing his own Hollywood story now, and there have been quite a few plot twists. The Connecticut native got his start in town as an intern in the product placement division at Disney, which is not quite an elite academy for auteurs, but he ended up meeting director John Badham ("WarGames," "Stakeout"), who became a major mentoring figure. Caruso worked on episodes of "Smallville" and "High Incident," but his major breakthrough was "The Salton Sea," the drugged-out 2002 neo-noir film that divided critics with its nihilism and squalor but established its young director as someone to watch.

The films that followed were mixed affairs, and Caruso is the first to admit it. There was "Taking Lives," with Angelina Jolie on the trail of a serial killer, and "Two for the Money," the gambling film starring Al Pacino. The big success was last year's "Disturbia," the suspense film that started a string of career-shaping roles for star Shia LaBeouf. The $18-million film pulled in $117 million worldwide, which led directly to Caruso and LaBeouf re-teaming for "Eagle Eye," which has the young star portraying a man on the run from a shadowy government power that has framed him as a terrorist.