Arlington Road (1999) 2 stars out of 4. Starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack.
Arlington Road is a most uneven thriller, made more uneven by the nearly embarrassing performance of Jeff Bridges, who is forced to act so overwrought and paranoid that his character becomes nearly cartoonish.
The story revolves around an issue that strikes close to home domestic terrorism.
Bridges plays Michael Faraday, who teaches a course on terrorism at George Washington University. A few years earlier, his wife, an FBI agent, was killed during a botched raid on a supposed right-wing enclave.
Faraday is still in mourning. He is a man consumed with pain and rage. He also has trouble trying to reconnect with his 9-year-old son.
His new neighbors, the Langs, who recently moved in across the street, become friendly with Faraday. The Langs have a young son, and he and Faraday's boy become the best of friends.
But eventually Faraday begins to suspect that Oliver Lang is not who he says he is. His investigation, consumed by paranoia, leads him down a dangerous and deadly path.
As directed by Mark Pellington, a veteran of music videos, Arlington Road is a frustrating endeavor. Pellington seems more content to play with his camera using whatever odd angles he can devise to create Faraday's nightmarish world.
It becomes more of a distraction than a dramatic device.
And Pellington fails to rein in Bridges' over-the-top reading. Bridges is one of our best actors, usually able to get under the skin of a character. He is best at portraying the average man caught in extraordinary situations, such as in Fearless.
But in Arlington Road, he is all motion bug-eyed, sweaty and rumpled. He seems too unstable, too out of control to be a disciplined college professor.
In contrast, Tim Robbins as Oliver Lang and Joan Cusack and his wife, Cheryl, behave normally and underplay their respective roles as the couple with a secret.
Robbins also shows a streak of decency and honor as he protects Faraday's son because the professor had saved the life of Lang's son after a fireworks accident.
Cusack is almost June Cleaverish, but with a dark streak that she subtly reveals throughout the movie.
Overall, Arlington Road has some fine sequences, but as a whole, the movie is an aggravating experience. The film falls very short of its potential. Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN.. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
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