Military Movies - Military Times

Film review: ‘Lakeview Terrace,’ 2½ stars

In the history of film, no actor has ever given a malevolent glare better than Samuel L. Jackson.

And he’s never put his death stare to more chilling effect than he does as a nightmare-inducing neighbor in “Lakeview Terrace,” the kind of unremarkable but serviceable thriller that is an annual staple of the tail end of the summer movie season.

Jackson is Abel Turner, a 28-year veteran of the LAPD and single father who lives in a quiet suburban cul-de-sac with his two kids, 15-year-old Celia (Regine Nehy) and 10-year-old Marcus (Jaishon Fisher). We learn early on that his wife died several years earlier, although the details don’t come until much later.

Abel is a stickler for respect — for oneself and others — in a world that he sees as increasingly lacking in that department. So he’s not pleased when his brand-new neighbors, an interracial couple — white Chris (Patrick Wilson) and black Lisa (Kerry Washington) — decide to have nekkid pool sex on their first night in their new home — in full view of Abel’s kids.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for Abel, who quickly lets it be known that he has a major burr under his saddle about a wimpy white guy playing house with a sistah. He initially expresses this sentiment through inappropriate, vaguely menacing comments, but a harrowing series of escalating confrontations makes it clear that someone is headed for a really bad end.

And since this nut is a police officer, Chris feels all but helpless. When he calls to report that his car’s tires have been slashed, the responding officer mentions that teenage vandals have been plaguing the area and says, “You’re lucky you have a cop living next door.”

Yeah ... lucky.

It’s all pretty loopy, but within its own bubble, the story exerts an undeniable pull. After all, pitting an ordinary Joe against a petty power abuser is a venerable and highly effective plot device in any type of fiction because it lights a fire under our innate sense of fairness and justice.

Director Neil LaBute works the gambit to good effect, although he’s hobbled a bit by the fact that his ordinary Joe is not a totally sympathetic character.

Chris is a Chicago boy who attended Berkeley on a lacrosse scholarship and now drives a Prius to his new middle-management job with an eco-friendly grocery store chain. He gets down to rap music like a Vanilla Ice wannabe — Lisa doesn’t care for the stuff herself — and does sneaky little things like smoke cigarettes in his car and then choke down breath mints and slather on hand sanitizer so Lisa won’t notice.

If that isn’t enough, he gripes in one scene about the weariness that derives from “always being on the front lines” in terms of the constant scrutiny supposedly aimed at his interracial marriage.

’Scuse me while I break out my tiny violin, you weenie.

Writers David Loughery and Howard Korder keep the true source of Abel’s psychosis under wraps until the film is just about to end (in predictable fashion that really can’t go any other way). It’s far more than just generalized prejudice; Abel has very personal reasons for his animosity toward Chris and Lisa.

Those reasons are as wildly improbable as anything else in “Lakeview Terrace.” But when the air turns cool and the big summer blockbusters have come and gone, you take what the octoplex gives you.