| | | What Could Be Safer Than Living Next to a Cop?
Features: Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.40:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), English, Subtitled, French, Spanish, Dubbed & Subtitled
In Lakeview Terrace, a young couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) has just moved into their California dream home when they become the target of their next-door neighbor, who disapproves of their interracial relationship. A stern, single father, this tightly wound LAPD officer (Samuel L. Jackson) has appointed himself the watchdog of the neighborhood. His nightly foot patrols and overly watchful eyes bring comfort to some, but he becomes increasingly harassing to the newlyweds. These persistent intrusions into their lives ultimately turn tragic when the couple decides to fight back.
"...tense and engrossing..." Dennis Harvey, Variety
"...one of the toughest racial dramas to come out of Hollywood...much tougher, for instance, than Paul Haggis's hand-wringing Oscar winner "Crash."" J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Editor's Note
A quick perusal of any of LAKEVIEW TERRACE's promotional materials--its nervy trailer, its foreboding (and painterly) dawn-hued poster featuring Samuel L. Jackson looking less-than-neighborly in his squad car--not only reveals it as a thriller, but offers up aesthetic evocations of several popular home-invasion suspensers made in the early 1990s. Like UNLAWFUL ENTRY and PACIFIC HEIGHTS, LAKEVIEW TERRACE takes place in upper-middle-class Californian suburbia. The film's ubiquitous purple sky and poolside lighting create an air of domestic bourgeois comfort just waiting to be upended by deadly social unease. In this mode, the surprises start when the film opens with intimate household scenes not of the film's purported heroes, an interracial couple who's about to move next-door, but of its not-entirely-apparent villain--a curiously middle-aged beat cop (Jackson) who raises a few eyebrows when he close-mindedly bullies his children, but seems sad and sympathetic. The cop, a black man named Abel Turner, watches blankly from his home when the first new neighbor he sees is an African-American wife (Kerry Washington)--and then reacts with quiet shock and disgust when he realizes that the white mover is actually her husband, Chris (Patrick Wilson). The invasion in this home-invasion thriller is, ironically, the one perceived by its psychologically damaged bad guy. Abel, offended and ostensibly law-immune, immediately begins jabbing Chris with a toxic passive-aggression that quickly becomes impossible to ignore. LAKEVIEW TERRACE adheres to a satisfying thriller construct. It's also a little interested in exploiting the archetypes of squirm-inducing domestic threat--all the nasty scenarios viewers recognize from those earlier movies--to consider several facets of American racism: its inevitability in familial and casual issues and its existence in liberal white guilt as much as its poisonous mixture with mental illness.
| Features | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Lakeview Terrace - Blu-Ray DVD Review By: Josh Lasser - Blogcritics.org Reviews Published on: 1/15/2009 2:04 PM | | Directed by Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men), the film stars Samuel L. Jackson (who was signed to the part before LaBute came on board according to the featurettes), Patrick Wilson, and Kerry Washington. Wilson and Washington are Chris and Lisa Mattson, an interracial couple that has just bought a house on Lakeview Circle in Los Angeles (yes, the film is Lakeview Terrace, and while that may be the neighborhood, it isn't made truly clear and certainly isn't the name of the street). Jackson plays Abel Turner, their next door neighbor and a member of the Los Angeles Police Department....read the full review |
| Technical Info
|
Release Information
| | Studio: Sony Pictures |
| Release Date: 1/27/2009 |
| Running Time: 110 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 25375 | | UPC: 00043396253759 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed, Portuguese Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed, Thai Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: French, Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Chinese | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.40:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Jay Hernandez | | Samuel L. Jackson | | Patrick Wilson | | Kerry Washington | | David Loughery - Executive Producer | | Howard Korder - Screenwriter | | Joe Pichirallo - Executive Producer | | John Cameron - Executive Producer | | Rogier Stoffers - Director of Photography | | Jeff Danna - Composer | | Will Smith - Producer | | Bruton Jones - Production Designer | | David Loughery - Story | | Michael Danna - Composer | | Joel Plotch - Editor | | Jeffrey Graup - Executive Producer | | Lynette Meyer - Costume Designer | | James Lassiter - Producer | | David Loughery - Screenwriter | | Neil LaBute - Director |
|
| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"Jackson modulates Abel's internal turmoil and heated exchanges with enough shades of loneliness, steely generosity and wicked playfulness to give the actor firm control of our fascination and growing unease." 09/19/2008USA Today
"[LAKEVIEW TERRACE] delves often unflinchingly into issues of race, politics and class. Jackson's performance is mesmerizing." 09/19/2008 Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "LaBute keeps the focus firmly on building up and paying off the tension in the film's swiftly unravelling showdown." 11/01/2008 p.48 Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "LAKEVIEW TERRACE is a canny, effective mix of personal concerns with commercial storytelling..." 01/01/2009 64 Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Neil LaBute's "Lakeview Terrace" is a film about a black cop who makes life hell for an interracial couple who move in next door. It will inspire strong reactions among its viewers, including outrage. It is intended to. LaBute often creates painful situations that challenge a character's sense of decency. This time he does it within the structure of a thriller, but the questions are there all the same...On top of all these questions, LaBute constructs a tightly wound story that also involves crude male bonding at an LAPD bachelor party, sexual humiliation, attempted rape (not by Chris or Abel), a cat-and-mouse game with cell phones and a violent conclusion during which we must decide if Chris is right about Abel, or wrong, or just discovering how to push his buttons. I'm surprised by the PG-13 rating...It's a challenging journey LaBute takes us on. Some will find it exciting. Some will find it an opportunity for an examination of conscience. Some will leave feeling vaguely uneasy...I find movies like this alive and provoking, and I'm exhilarated to have my thinking challenged at every step of the way...The effect is only intensified by the performances, especially by Jackson, who for such a nice man can certainly play vicious. Kerry Washington's character, in my mind, takes the moral high ground, although it's a little muddy. Her beauty and vulnerability are called for. Patrick Wilson plays a well-meaning man who is challenged to his core, and never thought that would happen. I think I know who is good and bad or strong and weak in this film. But here's the brilliance of it: I don't know if they do. - Roger Ebert
|
| |
|
|
|
