Lakeview Terrace

There's an inherent problem with making a movie of this kind: unless you're a creative genius of your time, these sorts of movies have the potential to turn real generic, REAL fast.

Reminiscent of Denzel Washington from Training Day, we see Samuel L. Jackson play an overly aggressive cop with an agenda, with the movie focusing on the problems he's causing for his new neighbors. A completely realistic situation that can take place anywhere. Problem is, because a movie like this is completely character driven, after you have the nice slow build up to the climax, once the tension snaps, you're relegated to basically a generically default final act of the movie where "the bad guy finally comes out of the proverbial shadows and literally chases the hero." (i.e. Disturbia, The Glass House). It's a shame too because the buildup on this was very good. Samuel L. Jackson was really scary here, he played that bullying, obsessive character perfect. The only acting problems I saw were 2-3 moments from Kerry Washington where her sad face was done poorly, with overly done lip quivers and facial movements (similar to Kirsten Dunst's crying scenes from the Spider-Man movies, except done in a BAD way).

With a movie like this, you pretty much have these possible outcomes:

1) the generic, semi-predictable ending (like we got here).
2) tragic ending with hero dying at the end.
3) an unpredictable twist coming out of left field (this has the potential to be very good or very bad).
4) a Great ending.

Unfortunately we usually get number one, since they wanna give the satisfying, safe, effective, tried and true, Hollywood ending. Most people are content with those types of cop out endings. I'm not.

Home ownership is still the American Dream. When newlyweds Chris and Lisa Mattson (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) move into their first home together, they are understandably excited. Very quickly, that dream becomes a nightmare for both them and their neighbor, Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson).

Turner's a widowed Dad with two kids he's trying to keep out of the trouble he sees every day on the street. He's pretty strict, but it's just him parenting. And he's not too comfortable about the interracial couple who's just moved in the neighborhood.

Lisa and Chris can't sleep for the security lights Abel has around his home.

Abel's kids see Chris and Lisa having a sexual encounter in their poor.

Chris plays loud rap music driving up to his home--and throws the cigarettes his wife doesn't know he's smoking over on Abel's yard.

Okay, Abel's pretty heavy. He patrols the neighborhood and issues unsigned parking tickets to people over the line. Not everyone likes it.

Tensions mount as Abel gets in trouble on his job. Chris and Lisa aren't doing so well, either. Lisa wants to start a family, but Chris isn't so sure.

The film has fascinating character arcs for both Chris and Abel. Initially, neither person is fully at fault, but as relations continue to spiral downhill, the tit for tat gets more and more vicious and cuts closer to home.

Abel's character rivets you to your seat. You see him determined to make a good home and family and yet his life is spinning further and further out of control. Hate him/pity him, you will not be devoid of emotion when you see the man on the screen.

And are the Mattsons the happy couple they initially seem to be? As the story unfolds, duplicity on both sides is revealed. The honeymoon is definitely over.

While this story has been told before, I don't think the director could have chosen anyone better than Jackson to play Abel. He's what ultimately makes the film stand out.

Rebecca Kyle, March 2009

This was overall a really good movie. I found the majority of the plot to be original and creative. You basically have Samuel L. Jackson playing a neighbor who at first seems to be a good cop and family man that just likes his privacy but he quickly shows himself as something worse. Everyone knows the story so I'm not going to give everyone the 1000th summary of the movie. Basically I found myself at first thinking Jackson's character was a pretty decent guy and by the time the movie was over I was shocked at the dark side to this character. What started out as a minor dislike for his neighbors eventually turned into a hatred for them. No matter what they did, he wanted them out of that house and he would go to great lengths to make sure that happened.

This was one of Samuel L's best acting performances ever in my opinion. He does a great job of having you believe he's a good family man one minute and a crazy lunatic of a neighbor the next. It was interesting to see how he would react to different things the neighbors were doing and how far he would go. The movie certainly kept you guessing through most of it. The one downside for me as others have said was the ending which seemed predictable and bery un-original. A better ending and this movie would be a 5 star movie. It's still a great movie though and one I'll watch again as well as recommend to others.