BUY IT AT AMAZON: STUDIO: Sony
MSRP: $28.96
RATED: PG-13
RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Featurette
Deleted Scenes
Commentary
The Pitch
Racism is still bad.
The Humans
Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, Kerry Washington, Jay Hernandez and Ron Glass
The Nutshell
Neil Labute used to be fucking amazing. Did you see The Shape of Things or In the Company of Men? That guy was amazing and absolutely had wonderful things to say. That guy’s dead, apparently. Now, we get a studio picture about a mean ol’ cop who won’t leave the neighboring interracial couple alone. What’s a yuppie to do?
Brad often found himself waking up in the middle night. Wondering about what would’ve happened had he nailed the jump on the skateboard. Would his wife have left him? Would SKYNET currently have an aerial Hunter-Killer poised right outside his window? Brad didn’t know. All he could think about was his son’s jester cap.
The Lowdown
Lakeview Terrace
is a film that wants to be more than it is. It’s a Vengeful Authority flick that tries to spend most of its first act downplaying Jackson’s character. He comes across as a good father, who won’t ever swear in front of anyone. Hell, the entire community seems to love him and the role he serves. But, there’s always that inner demon gnawing at his brain. Jackson doesn’t want his kids to tolerate the interracial couple that moved into the neighborhood.
They want to offer up me how much to re-up as Nick Fury? Fuck ’em.
If this was a better film, we’d have more time to examine the roots of Jackson’s phobias. That doesn’t happen. We get a few confrontational scenes that offer up for some good trailer cuts. But, it’s basic harassment that gets played off as an escalating psych warfare offensive. Patrick Wilson doesn’t help things as he looks like a kid going up against the force of nature that is Samuel L. Jackson.
It’s always a long wait, when you go to William Katt’s House.
The
film collapses in on itself in the Third Act. The wildfires are a cheap way to introduce some thrills and build the film to a resolution that’s unearned. A fellow critic made a comparison that it was Labute’s way of trying to find a Sirkian device to rise the stakes for the characters in this melodrama. I feel like that’s projecting a lot of good will on a jobber film. Sometimes, a stupid set piece is just a stupid set piece.
That’s when QT got Roth to open up the case. He couldn’t break character, when he looked down inside of it saw and what was glowing. Three Samuel L. steaming logs that spelled out BMF. That poor limey never saw it coming.
Lakeview Terrace gets what it needs done. It pushes the pedestrian buttons that it needs to take money off of slack-jawed mainstream viewers. Your yokel cousins and co-workers will talk about how realistic the film is, while you wonder when was the last time you saw neighbors fight in the middle of firestorm. They’ll also talk about how true it was to the depiction of race relations in America. Again, you’ll wonder what fucking planet they’re from. Just close your eyes and keep repeating the same phrase to yourself. At leasn’t, it wasn’t Wicker Man bad.
Samuel L. Jackson always has to hide his face around Grove Street. Hardcore ‘bangers will never forget the shit that he put C.J. through back in the 90s.
The
DVD
has a pretty strong transfer with a strong audio track. The deleted scenes don’t offer up any new insight to the movie. The featurettes are a six-part breakdown that show off the various steps of production. Mostly, it’s just a chance for the cast and crew to offer lip service. If you didn’t get enough lip service off of that, then there’s the commentary. It’s hard listening to Labute try to explain how this movie was a revelation. You can tell that he doesn’t believe it and his words sound so hollow.