Review: Lakeview Terrace

Lakeview Terrace

OPENING: 09/19/2008

STUDIO: Screen Gems

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
What could be safer than living next to a cop?

Opening Statement
For the first ninety minutes or so, Lakeview Terrance is a sharp, engaging, fiercely intelligent and provocative film. Things get a bit more generic in the finale, but the film is good enough to survive the ordinary ending. Much like Michael Mann’s Collateral, the journey there is compelling enough to make the somewhat predictable destination worthwhile.


Facts of the Case
Kerry Washington and Patrick Wilson play an interracial married couple who move into a nice new subdivision. They’re finally settling down in a nice home, and they’re looking forward to getting started with the American Dream. Unfortunately, one of their neighbors isn’t particularly keen on seeing that happen. That neighbor is Abel (Samuel L. Jackson), a widowed police officer with two children. Abel begins by making vaguely insinuating statements that could just be interpreted as unintentional insults or bad jokes. Things gradually get worse, and before long the couple becomes convinced that Abel wants them out of the neighborhood.
Abel’s reasons for this seem to be primarily racial. He is uncomfortable with the idea of a white male being married to a black female, and he doesn’t want his children “exposed” to such things. He continues his hostile measures against the couple, but is careful to leave them with no legal ground to take action against them. Besides, even if the couple did want to take action, Abel is a cop. It’s not like the police are going to do anything, right?


The Evidence
You may think that the plot sounds a good deal like the film Pacific Heights, an enjoyably nasty little thriller that starred Michael Keaton as Melanie Griffith’s evil neighbor. However, director Neil Labute is interested in making something far more interesting than a mere “neighbor from hell” thriller. He uses that reasonably engaging concept as a way of exploring one of his favorite subjects (men behaving in particularly abhorrent ways). He also explores themes of race and prejudice, and in a way makes a film that feels like the subversive cousin of Crash. You may think that making the married individuals an interracial couple is a way of deflecting any criticism that could come from the fact that the villain is an African-American man. If this were just a thriller, that might be the case. Here, the casting is the entire point. Labute takes the buried stereotypes and prejudices of these characters of these characters and boils them to the surface. It gets pretty ugly, but it’s also darkly fascinating stuff. Labute is at his best when he deals with extremely unpleasant people, and this film marks a genuine return to form.

The complexity of the characters surprised me. Jackson is the villain, but he is not just some mysterious force of evil like Keaton was in Pacific Heights. We see a good deal of his personal life and work and at home. The movie wants us to understand what makes this man tick, and why he is going to such extremes. Chris, Patrick Wilson’s character, is also surprising. As Abel increases his hostility, we are surprised to discover that we don’t find ourselves feeling increasingly sympathetic towards Chris. The harder Abel strikes, the less noble Chris becomes, and soon begins to veer precipitously close to Abel’s level of (dis)honor. As for poor Kerry Washington, she is relegated to standing in the background… but in a good way, actually. Despairingly, she attempts to serve as the voice of reason as these two alpha males scratch and claw their way towards the finish line.

We’re so lucky to have a guy like Samuel L. Jackson in the movies. He’s one of those actors who is both a great movie star and a great actor. In half of his roles, he plays “The Samuel L. Jackson character.” See Snakes on a Plane for an example of what I mean. The rest of the time, he digs deep into the soul of the character he plays, and creates someone new and convincing. That can be immensely moving when you have someone like his homeless hobo in The Caveman’s Valentine or the blues guitarist in Black Snake Moan. Here, as he plays a man with a very dark soul, it’s nothing short of terrifying. The Academy will not give Jackson a best actor nomination (as with Black Snake Moan, the film and his performance are simply too risky), but he deserves one.

As I mentioned, the film isn’t perfect. You will recognize the showdown of the film from another movie that you have probably seen, and the final scene felt a bit too optimistic for a cynic like me. Nonetheless, Lakeview Terrace is strong, thought-provoking stuff that is bound to leave the viewer with a whole bucketful of complex feelings.

Closing Statement
Many have criticized the movie because they feel it fails as a thriller. If you see Lakeview Terrance and leave thinking that it was nothing more than a thriller, then you’ve missed what this movie is about. Strongly recommended for those who want a little something to chew on.


The Verdict

9/10

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