Lakeview Terrace...

Introduction

LAPD officer Abel Turner is a widowed father trying to bring up his two children Celia (Regine Nehy) and Marcus (Jaishon Fisher) in a nice suburb of California with brush fires happening in the background. Abel is a strict father with a long list of rules he enforces on his kids in order to bring them up correctly according to his standards. Abel's beat is on the street in one of the roughest neighbourhoods, a beat he patrols with partner Javier Villareal (Jay Hernandez).

Abel's peaceful existence is unsettled with the arrival of new neighbours. As Abel watches them settle in, he thinks that his new neighbours are an older black guy and his young black wife. As he watches them, he then realises that the young black woman is married to a young white guy. And frowns.



Chris Mattson (Patrick Wilson) is a young commercial executive who works for a national grocery chain and took the chance to move both himself and his wife Lisa (Kerry Washington) to California when the chain starts to expand. Chris starts to have misgivings about his neighbour quite quickly after a few comments aimed at him and a couple of 'jokes' at his expense. Chris tries to reason with Abel but things start to escalate.

At first it's simply Abel's powerful security lights shining directly into their bedroom, but it quickly becomes vandalism against their air con unit and then their car, when the garage is broken into and the tyres slashed. Chris believes it is Abel behind the attacks but can't prove it, but is also soon distracted when it is revealed that Lisa is pregnant - something that they had previously discussed and agreed as something to happen later.

As their own relationship starts to be questioned under the pressure from Abel's racist and bullying behaviour, the ante is raised and the consequences will be deadly…

Extras

Deleted Scenes - found through practice that the best way to watch deleted scenes is with Director's Commentary on with subtitles so you can see the dialogue. This obviously depends on the disc authoring and I'm pleased to say it is here.

Making Of - 3 part Behind The Scenes featurette that can be watched as individual chapters or as one complete extra. Each chapter is roughly 5 minutes and I tend to watch them in one go, mainly because I'm a lazy bugger and can't be asked to keep selecting menu options.

Trailer

Overall

Have to admit that I wasn't sure what to expect from this film, which is a good thing as I had no preconceived ideas on what it was about or where it was going. The artwork showing Sam Jackson on the front cover gave me an idea that he was going to be playing some kind of badass dude in uniform, but I never really expected a social commentary on racism; and black racism at that. Have to admit that I've never really seen a film that tackles this subject head on before and quite pleased with this one, even if it's wrapped up in cod-thriller territory. Also noticed that Will Smith is one of the producers of this film and so this is clearly a subject that he feels strongly about as well.



The core cast are great, with Jackson in particular being rather good. Initially you see him as the widowed father struggling to bring up his kids and setting rules that you may well think are reasonable, even though his teenage daughter really hates them. You just think that, well kids at that age never like the rules set by parents. And it's a bit of a nice twist to begin the film with Jackson as you think that he may be the hero of the piece (he was a Jedi, after all…) and it's only gradually that you see his true character revealed.

Wilson and Washington have good chemistry as the interracial couple who are on the receiving end of Jackson's racism. Wilson is always the one at a disadvantage here as the white guy married to a black woman, with comments from his wife initially suggesting that Wilson has misinterpreted Jackson and doesn't understand him; the implication is clear, it's a Black thing and you can't hope to understand it as you're White. It quickly dawns on her though just what Jackson is like, particularly after their disastrous house warming party where Jackson takes the time to make a scene about their liberal leanings and mocks their friends.



Eventually you get to find out what may have caused Jackson to feel the way he does, inner questioning since his wife's death that has never been resolved and continues to just eat away at him until the arrival of the new couple triggers his rather nasty behaviour. Abel just doesn't seem to be able to help himself and his hatred of the couple pushes his behaviour to get more outlandish and unlawful, so much so that it gets out of hand and he makes the mistake that not only leads to death but also takes us to the climax of the film.

This is not a classic film by any means, but is an average thriller with a good set of questions at the core. The first and foremost is about racism of any kind, but specifically about Black feelings about White. The second is just how do you deal with a neighbour from hell if he happens to be a cop? It's obvious to the viewer that Abel is a cop who has crossed the line on occasion and may well be involuntarily retired by his superiors, but the young couple don't know this and therefore don't believe that a complaint will be taken seriously.

The ending is slightly over the top and a bit predictable, but where this film was logically going to go. I did enjoy this.