Lakeview Terrace (2008)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Neil LaBute

Writers (WGA):

David Loughery (screenplay) and
Howard Korder (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

19 September 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

What could be safer than living next to a cop?

Plot:

An LAPD officer will stop at nothing to force out the interracial couple who just moved in next door. |

Plot Keywords:

Harassment | Police Officer | Floodlight | Racism | Slashed Tire

US Showtimes:

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Cast

Samuel L. Jackson	...	Abel Turner
Patrick Wilson	...	Chris Mattson
Kerry Washington	...	Lisa Mattson
Ron Glass	...	Harold Perreau
Justin Chambers	...	Donnie Eaton
Jay Hernandez	...	Javier Villareal
Regine Nehy	...	Celia Turner
Jaishon Fisher	...	Marcus Turner
Robert Pine	...	Captain Wentworth
Keith Loneker	...	Clarence Darlington
Caleeb Pinkett	...	Damon Richards
Robert Dahey	...	Jung Lee Pak
Ho-Jung	...	Sang Hee Pak
Bitsie Tulloch	...	Nadine
Michael Sean Tighe	...	Manager

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense thematic material, violence, sexuality, language and some drug references.

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | SDDS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | UK:15 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Overbrook Entertainment

Trivia:

Lakeview Terrace is the name of the area that Rodney King was beaten by L.A. police in 1991. His name and famous line, "Can't we all just get along?" is also referenced in the movie.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The uniform patches and the badges worn by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies that appear in the film do not resemble those from real life. In the film only the words "County Sheriff" appear instead of the actual "Los Angeles County Sheriff" lettering. Also both the patches and the badge have a seal of some sort resembling that of the State of California, whereas the actual patches have a star and a bear and the badges have a bear in the center.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Chris Mattson: I love you.
Lisa Mattson: I know.... I love you too.
Chris Mattson: The rest isn't important.
Lisa Mattson: [whispering] Shhhhh....
Chris Mattson: We're going to have a family.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: James Franco/Kings of Leon (#34.2)" (2008)

starts out strong and captivating... and then its motivations run dry and the drama turns to ill metaphors

I'm sure Neil LaBute is a talented director- I've enjoyed both Your Friends and Neighbors and the criminally underrated Nurse Betty (not seen In the Company of Men or Shape of Things, but heard great things about both, not so much the Wicker Man redux)- and Lakeview Terrace occasionally flashes some moments that reveal his understanding of the subject matter at hand. Other times, he just lets the screenwriters do it for him, and it turns out far less fascinating or really disturbing as it could have been. Early on the story speaks its promise: a conservative LA cop- yes, conservative first and foremost as one notes the character's disdain for democrats or just liberalism in general- played by Sam Jackson sees a white guy (Patrick Wilson) and black woman (Kerry Washington) move in. From the get-go there's hostility, if at first more subtle and just annoying. And there's some possible questions that could be raised in the course of the running time of the picture, if just as possibilities.

But the problem, very soon to see, is that everything that motivates Jackson's character to act the way he does becomes twisted around a plot contrivance. I won't spoil it (not to really shield you from it, just because it's not worth it if you intend on seeing it), but something from Abel's history that shouldn't be so blatant and be more ambiguous or allow Jackson as an actor some room for subtlety or room for interpretation is shoved down our collective gullets. One might wish that there would be more room for three-dimensionality in general, but at best we get just 2D and at worst it's basically one continuous drumming beat until we almost kind of dread Jackson's character coming in on Wilson and Washingtons' scenes, not so much because he's supposed to be menacing but because it throws off the flow of the story. It's not even that Jackson is bad in the performance, on the contrary he does the best he can and sometimes does bring that flash or just flinch of the face that reminds us how good an actor he can be.

LaBute can't figure out entirely how to proceed with a highly charged drama, however, without a heavy-handed metaphorical device. It is a fact that the Southern California has been a hot-bed of wildfires spreading all about, destroying lots of pricey property and leveling to waste millions (maybe billions) of dollars of revenue. The tactic here in Lakeview Terrace is to take that symbol of fire burning down a city and transplant it into the burning down of racial bonding and peace and yada yada, and it's not really a metaphor/symbol/whatever that hits right away - but when it does, yikes is it an over-bearing claptrap made especially for the climax (I was almost pining for that also hackneyed Haggis formula of crashes in Crash).

And, again, motivation and really well-defined characters end up sinking this after the promising first act; as soon as Abel's agitation turns to practically psychotic behavior, it's hard to actually connect with this past something out of a horror movie. And I don't mean that as something for a cathartic reaction or other. Wilson and Washingtons' characters don't help much either as we're privy to a contrived sub-plot involving an "unintentional" pregnancy (not to mention Jackson's own semi-interesting sub-plot with him screwing up on the force). By the end it turns to being laughable as a quasi-revenge quasi-what-the-hell treatise on uneasy racial relations where just some more hints of unintentional racism, as opposed to just the sinister presence of big-bad-black-*cop*, might be an advantage. 5.5/10