Lakeview Terrace

Lakeview Terrace is accelerated as a cul de sac. It is a film about race, is set in LA, which has an LAPD cop. Ultimately, it does not take itself as seriously as accelerated, however, and instead of using car crashes as a metaphor used by another Southern California commodity: out of control forest fires. Although at times a bit heavy-handed (how can a movie about the race not be?), And often more-acted (in the case of a Samuel L. Jackson), Terrace, that is, in the end, a Some sound vaguely entertaining melodrama with some astute observations about life and racism.

The film, directed by Neil LaBute (Nurse Betty, Possession) follows a familiar setup: wide-eyed young couple, Chris and Lisa Mattson (played by Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) is moving to a new home, pending the It is a white-picket-fence fairy tale. Of course, not all is well in paradise. In this case, it is an unstable neighbor who is hell-bent on driving a Dodge for the newcomers. This neighbor, Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson) is a single parent, widow and a veteran LAPD police with a lot of psychological problems. His main beef is obvious: the Mattsons are a mixed couple (who is white, she is black) and Abel will have none of that in his block.

Turner makes it his mission to torment Mattsons in any of the ways I can. He shines in the open air pockets Mattson windows of the room, plays loud music late at night, and every opportunity that may come to verbal abuse and taunt them. In the Mattsons house warming party, for example, Abel shows and proceeded to make uncomfortable and racially insensitive comments that offended almost everyone in the party. As the film progresses, the tension between the villain and Mattsons Abel reached crisis levels, escalating to the point of extreme violence by the end of the film.


The "Abel problem" quickly makes the marriage of Chris and Lisa to suffer, which ultimately makes for some of the most interesting films of the theater. Chris, who already feel besieged by friends and family for having married a black girl, is determined to take care of himself and Lisa Abel demonstrate its capability and strong enough to defend her marriage. Abel is the spoiler in what turns out to be a not-so-pristine relationship between Chris and Lisa says racism expose some underlying tensions and trust in the relationship Mattsons make everything much more difficult for them to resist the toxic verbal missives that were thrown at them, the boy next door.

Things really bubble to Chris and Lisa when Lisa discovers she is pregnant. This is not what we had thought that Chris had planned, and which reacts in a revealing how cruel: Lisa accusing leap to his birth control pills. One could chalk up all the stress, but Labute, which in his early films (in the Company of Men, their friends and neighbors) is a special pleasure in cruelty-relational foregrounding seems to indicate that there are deeper issues in this marriage are coming to the surface on account of the crisis Abel. We never the sense that Chris and Lisa resentment among themselves, but their picture-perfect facade is undoubtedly undermined in the course of the film.

The movie might have worked better if the complicated Chris / Lisa histories served until Abel and Turner / psychopath played down the angle. As it is, the plausibility of the film is hampered by the sheer extremism of the shares of Turner. While the character of Turner begins credible and sufficient empathy (the first time we see what is at the foot of his bed, praying), which soon becomes almost a caricature, a poisonous, insane, amoral man committed to the torture of a young innocent just because that offend their sensitivity racial bias. At the end of the film, the nature of eyes, campy Jackson from Pulp Fiction / Snakes on a plane and takes over Terrace occasionally becomes unintentionally funny. Ultimately I think Jackson is too big for a personality of a movie like this, although I am not sure that someone else could have pulled off the role of Abel Turner.

In addition to Jackson, the movie is well cast. Patrick Wilson is the consummate white preppie kid, ideally suited for the role of Chris Mattson, a privileged yuppie who went to Berkeley on a lacrosse scholarship, smoke cigarettes organic (when the wife is not looking), and enjoys hip-hop as music that leads to the home office. However, Kerry Washington is that really impresses in the role of Chris wife, Lisa. She is the most sympathetic character in the film and shows great range of subtle emotions, within the celebration of the same concerns and unspoken insecurities of a woman trapped in a precarious situation culturally.

Labute does a good job with his actors, as they always do, although it was clear who was born and raised in the direction of theater. He is prone to melodrama and handheld movie embellishments (like the backdrop of gunpowder that was clearly intended to underscore the danger and unpredictability fuels "heat" of the situation), and the absence of many of localization and changes to Sometimes it feels a little too theatrical and a bit claustrophobic.

However, some personages succeeds in creating more interesting and full of tension action scenes. The film is true to note the complexity of how racism, which is not always what it seems, in many ways and from many points of view, etc, and for all its hyperbole, the figure of Abel Turner did not resonate with many of contemporary racial divisions and problems in the United States. Turner is the old school, a rule-keeper, that a robust majority in the LAPD days of Rodney King and remains uncomfortable cozying to whites. For him, is still in black and white, and that is where he wants to stay. He is totally uncomfortable about the trading of races and that feels betrayed a "sister" as Lisa who choose to marry a man like Chris blindingly white.

However, even with a complicated backdrop that tries to explain some of Turner overreactions, he never comes across as completely real, just a lonely, angry, resentful sociopath that has led to the breakup.

And, ultimately this is the problem of the Terrace as a whole: is clever, dramatic, and sometimes convincing, but at the end of the day it feels less like reality and more like Hollywood-not-a-race-fable .

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Theater release:
September 19, 2008
by Screen Gems

Directed by: Neil Labute

Runtime: 110 minutes

Cast:
Samuel L. Jackson (Abel Turner), Patrick Wilson (Chris Mattson), Kerry Washington (Lisa Mattson)