Screenhead

I’ll kick this one off with a little warning: I’m extremely biased in favor of Samuel L. Jackson.  Sam Jack is good in pretty much anything, one of only a handful of actors who can say the same, at least as far as I’m concerned.  So when I laid hands on a copy of Lakeview Terrace, I was expecting him to bring a solid performance.  How was the rest of the movie around him?  More on that directly—but first, plot recap time.

When a young interracial couple moves into the neighborhood on Lakeview Terrace in sunny California, they think they’re really moving up in the world.  At least until they run afoul of their next-door neighbor, a racist cop who doesn’t approve of their relationship.  He’s also a stern disciplinarian of a single father, and the police precinct at which he works has a whole host of question marks on his record.  So when this unstable cop goes up against this young couple, in the midst of wildfire season, no less, it’s only a question of who will survive the encounter.

After all…when your psycho neighbor’s a cop…it’s hard to call the cops on him.

That’s at once what’s both awesome and wrong about this whole thing.  We don’t see movies about psycho cop neighbors very often, and for that, Lakeview Terrace gets some originality nods.  It has to—this kind of thing just doesn’t happen very often.  But a lot of SIMILAR things do happen.  Bad cop movies, psycho neighbor movies—these are fairly regular occurrences as suspense thrillers go.

It won’t surprise anyone to find that, once again, Sam Jack has turned in a choice performance.  The guy always does.  I’ve seen him play a good guy, a bad guy, and every kind of guy in between, and it doesn’t matter how big his part is or what he’s out to do: Samuel L. Jackson is one of those rare actors that can be counted on to turn in a fantastic performance no matter how bad the rest of the movie around him is.  Thankfully, Lakeview Terrace isn’t necessarily a bad movie.  Sure, it’s nothing great, but it’s at least a fairly solid title that won’t be a total waste of a rental.  These days, that’s actually a pretty good report.

Sure, it’s not the most original thing on the shelves, but it does deliver in the suspense department, and there’s plenty else to like here besides.  It’s not all sunshine and lollipops—the ending’s a bit on the predictable and abrupt side, and I can’t shake the feeling they only had an interracial couple in here to give the script just a little extra length.

Regardless, the work itself is solid, and Sam Jack throws out a great villain role, easily on par with anything else he’s done.  And I have to admit, I liked the added drama that came from adding the wildfires to the plot—it was a nice touch that added a little more spice to things.

All things considered, really, this is going to be worth the two hours you put into it.  A reasonably scary thriller with one great performer and a handful of decent backup adds up to produce a whole that’s worth your time.

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