Arlington Road (1999) Reviewed by Eugene Novikov http://www.ultimate-movie.com Member: Online Film Critics Society
**** out of four
"Fear Thy Neighbor"
Starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Hope David, Joan Cusack. Rated R.
As I write this, nearly two days after the screening, Arlington Road is still a haunting and vivid image in my memory. I suspect it will stay with me for some time. Director Mark Pellington delivers one of the scariest, smartest, most daring thrillers I've seen in recent memory, a thoughtful yet horrifyingly intense meditation on human nature.
Jeff Bridges, who has shown his remarkable versatility as an actor with his roles in The Big Lebowski and now this, stars as Michael Faraday, a jittery man who teaches a class on terrorism at a local university. His wife, an FBI agent, died a few years prior because the Bureau gave her faulty information on a terrorist suspect. He now lives with his son and, on occasion, his girlfriend (Hope Davis).
Across the street from them live five seemingly ordinary people: Oliver and Cheryl Lang (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack, respectively) with their three children. At first, Michael tries to be friendly, frequently visiting and assuring that his kid interacts with theirs. But it isn't long before he starts noticing strange things around their household: suspicious blueprints, strange mail and other extraordinary goings-on. Soon, Faraday launches a one man investigation into Oliver Lang's past, finding out that he changed his name to the name of the person who died the day before and that he was caught up in a pipe bomb incident at the tender age of 16.
Faraday begins to suspect conspiracy while everyone around him is convinced that he has gone off the deep end. With his extensive knowledge of terrorism, he is determined to discover the secret behind his peculiar neighbors. But is there anything to discover?
Arlington Road is a film about denial. We clamor for a sense of personal security and when that is taken away from us we, as a people, are willing to drastically mislead ourselves to get it back. This movie says that there is no conspicuous end to our self-delusion. Those who dare to stand up and argue that the conclusions we so deliberately come to are wrong are immediately labeled paranoid, perhaps even crazy. In that sense, this is a staggeringly brilliant cautionary tale.
Aside from that, it's also an insanely suspenseful thriller. With tour de force cinematography, a stunningly effective (although fairly standard) soundtrack and intriguing scene set-ups, Arlington Road generated such pure, unadulterated tension that I must admit I was taken aback. In the best Hitchcock tradition, here's a movie that not only entertains and keeps you glued to the screen in the immediate present but one that also carries enough weight to remain in your memory for a significant amount of time after you throw away that empty popcorn bucket.
Jeff Bridges gives a virtuoso performance as the desperate Faraday. He is the perfect action hero: a character without a hint of pretension who acts on instinct alone. Bridges plays Faraday as a despairing person and succeeds in making him a sympathetic character. Tim Robbins, heretofore underused in dramatic roles, is absolutely chilling as the ominous neighbor while Joan Cusack as Robbins' wife continues to show us why she is one of the most talented actresses in the business.
I will not reveal the ending, but I will say that it is the perfect example of why I love going to the movies. It is exactly the kind of daring, unapologetic conclusion that shows me that there are still people in the mainstream movie business willing to go against popular convention. Pellington and writer Ehren Kruger (the upcoming Scream 3) saw an opportunity to solidify the film's point and went for it without wimping out.
It's a shame that Arlington Road is destined to get lost in the shuffle with all the big blockbusters because it is (so far) the year's best film. Only the best of filmmakers and performers can make me so completely suspend my disbelief and get me involved in the action and the folks involved with this production did just that. A pessimistic cautionary tale, this is a movie that has all the potential of a great movie and, for once is able to realize it. ©1999 Eugene Novikov ‰
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews