videorama-759-859391 I had stayed away from these movies, because I had seen too many of em. I finally gave this one a go, and I was not disappointed one bit. Again I've realized just what an exceptional, underrated actor, Jackson is. He fits in with this movie perfectly. Down on the surface, he's not a happy man, and when an interracial couple (Wilson and Washington) move in, this doesn't really help things. I must say the tension and drive of the story is nicely handled. Instead of working from a thriller point of view it works from the antagonist and protagonist, but in a very realistic scenario. Could the reason for cop, Jackson's insurmountable anger and issues, be cause his ex work married a white guy. That had sprung to mind, halfway during the movie, though we never find that out. There are a few predicable instances like, in some cases, you know what ensues next, like Jackson, catching the two making out in their spa. But really what I like about this, is wondering where Jackson will take it next, and how far Wilson, will be pushed before he retaliates. Yes it does have somewhat of a shitty ending, because it's predictable. We need something different, where apart from that, you've got one cool ride of a movie, steered by two likable actors.

FilmBuff1994 Lakeview Terrace is a very poor movie with a dull storyline and an overall uninspired cast.Samuel L. Jackson does a great job and will always be an outstanding actor,but he still wasn't enough to make this movie decent,the only scenes that I really liked were when we got to see his character working for the LAPD,which we saw very little of.Kerry Washington did the best she could with the character she was given,sadly it was a boring character that lacked any interesting personality traits,but I found Patrick Wilson's character very annoying,he wouldn't stick up to Jackson's character and couldn't defend his own household and I found the character unlikeable.Lakeview Terrace is a really slow and mediocre movie that I think people would be better off avoiding.A racist veteran LAPD cop starts a violent campaign of intimidation and harassment against his new neighbours because of their interracial relationship. Best Performance: Samuel L. Jackson Worst Performance: Patrick Wilson

estebangonzalez10 "It's his word against yours. And he has, let's say, the color issue on his side. And that color happens to be blue."Lakeview Terrace is a thriller that some consider to be underrated. This film has always been on my radar after reading Roger Ebert's four star review, but most critics didn't really dig this film. I wasn't blown away by it like Ebert, but I still enjoyed this suspenseful thriller thanks mostly to Samuel L. Jackson's crazy eyed performance. If someone you know is complaining about their neighbors, then recommend them this film and I guarantee you they will never complain again. Compared to director, Neil LaBute's, previous film, The Wicker Man, this is a masterpiece. The film does manage to maintain a certain level of suspense and the characters are well developed, but the final act is a bit of a letdown. The film lacks some subtlety at times, but it did keep me at the edge of my seat throughout most of its running time. LaBute wasn't afraid to hold back on the racial comments and Jackson's character was very outspoken about it; he definitely succeeds at making the audience feel uncomfortable with several remarks. Chris Mattson (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Lisa (Kerry Washington), arrive to their new home in sunny California despite the news reports of several wildfires across the area. They are a recently married couple and are excited about having purchased their first home together. Lisa's father (Ron Glass) is ready to head back home after having finished helping with all the moving, meanwhile Chris and Lisa meet their new neighbor, Abel (Samuel L. Jackson), who happens to be an LA police officer and so they feel even more secure about their purchase. What they never see coming however is that Abel is a very strict man who doesn't approve of their interracial marriage. Not feeling comfortable with their presence, Abel who lives with his son Marcus (Jaishon Fisher) and daughter Celia (Regine Nehy), begins to bully and threaten them in order to force them to move out of their new home. Abel also happens to be experiencing some struggles of his own back at work for his abusive behavior, so this cop doesn't seem to be the one you want to live close to.Samuel L. Jackson is known mostly for playing a good guy in his movies, so getting to see him in this very different role felt like a breath of fresh air. He gives a terrifying performance here and his presence always made me feel uncomfortable. Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington also gave strong performances for a thriller like this considering they weren't the perfect couple. They each had flaws and their characters were developed really well. Unfortunately the movie doesn't end on a strong note and that is what ultimately brought it down for me. I still think this film is worth seeing for Samuel L. Jackson's performance, he carries the movie throughout its weak moments. The story may sound familiar considering it is a conventional thriller, but there are moments thanks mostly to the strong performances and well developed characters, that make this film stand above other films in its genre.

James Hitchcock For years, Hollywood has tended to shy away from the sensitive subject of racially mixed marriages, but in recent years there have been signs that the taboo has been weakening. "Mirrors", for example, featured a racially mixed couple, and "Lakeview Terrace", another film from 2008, is an "issue" movie centred upon that very theme. (In both films the husband is white and the wife black; Hollywood still seems reluctant to make films dealing with the opposite situation, which is in fact statistically more common in real life).The film takes its title from a racially mixed middle-class neighbourhood in Los Angeles. The central characters are a young interracial couple, Chris and Lisa Mattson, and their next-door neighbour Abel Turner, a black officer with the LAPD, with whom they have a tense, uneasy relationship which soon degenerates into open hostility.The film starts off as an examination of two conflicting lifestyles. Abel, a widowed father of two young children, is considerably older than the Mattsons and is more politically and socially conservative; he is, for example, sceptical about global warming and keen to defend the police against allegations of brutality. He is a strict father, something shown by the way in which he constant corrects his children whenever they make a grammatical error. Chris and Lisa, by contrast, are more cosmopolitan and liberal; it is ironic that Chris, the young white professional, is a fan of hip hop music, generally regarded as the music of working-class urban blacks.Abel is sometimes described as a racist, but his is a specialised form of racism. He is not prejudiced against white people per se; he is happy to live in a racially mixed area, and would have no objection to living next door to an all-white couple, especially if they shared his social attitudes. He does, however, object to mixed marriages, and this is one of the reasons why he dislikes Chris and Lisa. This attitude may derive from an incident in his past. He was widowed when his wife was killed in a road accident alongside her white boss, with whom he believes (possibly incorrectly) she was having an affair.In the second half of the film it turns into an example of what I have come to regard as the "…… from Hell" movie. The basic premise of such films is that the life of the protagonist is turned upside-down by the arrival of a stranger who initially seems friendly but who quickly turns out to be dangerous. (This sub-genre of the thriller enjoyed great popularity in the late eighties and early nineties following the success of "Fatal Attraction", or "One Night Stand from Hell"). In this case it is Abel who is the villain and Chris and Lisa his victims; they may have to some extend provoked him, but his behaviour degenerates from the merely unneighbourly to the criminal to the murderous.I have given Lakeview Terrace a relatively high mark because of the original way in which its ideas are developed in the first part of the film and because of the quality of the acting, especially from Samuel L. Jackson as Abel, or at least the Abel of the early scenes. He is portrayed as a proud man, one with a short temper, but a loving if strict father, doing his best to get his kids off to a good start in life, and Jackson is able to bring out all these facets of his character, as well as hinting at the possible latent violence underlying the surface.Nevertheless it was in my view unfortunate that the scriptwriters and director Neil LaBute allowed the film to turn into a "….from Hell" movie, because the first half is actually much more interesting. Abel might end up as the neighbour from Hell, but at first he himself has several legitimate causes of complaint about the behaviour of the Mattsons. (They have been making love in their outdoor swimming-pool, in full view of Abel's children, and Chris has been flicking cigarette butts over his fence). By slavishly following the conventions of the conventional suspense thriller, the film loses the opportunity to examined the little-explored phenomenon of black conservatism and the way in which it conflicts with the cosmopolitan liberalism of many- both black and white- in the younger generation. It would appear that in Hollywood it is still OK to make a black man the villain, provided that he is sufficiently reactionary to offend against the canons of political correctness. A more conciliatory or nuanced ending might have made for a more interesting film. 7/10