[Inspector Hammer!]

My dad and I saw this today and it was a fairly tense and unnerving little thriller.

***MILD SPOILERS AHEAD, IF YOU'VE SEEN ANY PREVIEWS YOU KNOW PRETTY MUCH WHAT'S SAID BELOW***

The highlight of course being the performance of Sam Jackson as Abel Turner, an unstable, broken man who unleashes his fury over his failed life as a husband, father and policeman for the LAPD on his unsuspecting new neighbors, an interracial couple who's dream of a new life in their first house becomes a nightmare.

Abel's antics start as mere nuisances and quickly escalate into increasingly threatening behavior. Jackson's performance is so unhinged and intimidating that he practically carries the entire film on his shoulders and he makes it work and Patrick Wilson as his put-upon prey-next-door carries his own weight as well as he proves to be no chump, which was refreshing since the hero in these types of films can sometimes come off as weak and causes the audience to almost root for the bad guy.

All in all I recommend this for a more than passable afternoon at the movies.

[Patrick Sun]

The first half of "Lakeview Terrace" is almost always played for laughs as an interracial couple moves next door to a police office, Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson), who has a way of looking at things with black-n-white glasses, while having the law on his side, making it difficult for the couple to have the law deal with Abel's passive-aggressiveness in making the couple feel unwelcome in their new neighborhood.

The setup is entertaining enough for a script that swings far too broadly at times and ends up stumbling to a finish, which diminishes most of the first half setup of the film, and delivers a less than interesting or entertaining conclusion.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "Lakeview Terrace". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.

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Crawdaddy