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Movies / On DVD / Lakeview Terrace
Lakeview Terrace

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Lakeview Terrace (2008)

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47 %
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Reviews Counted: 148

Fresh: 70

Rotten:78

Average Rating: 5.5/10

Consensus: This thriller about a menacing cop wreaking havoc on his neighbors is tense enough but threatens absurdity when it enters into excessive potboiler territory.

Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for intense thematic material, violence, sexuality, language and some drug references.

Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Sep 19, 2008 Wide

Box Office: $39,263,506

Synopsis: 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... 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. [More]

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, Kerry Washington, Jay Hernandez

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, Kerry Washington, Jay Hernandez

Director: Neil LaBute

Director: Neil LaBute
Screenwriter: David Loughery, Howard Korder
Story: David Loughery
Producer: James Lassiter, Will Smith
Composer: Michael Danna, Jeff Danna
Studio: Screen Gems

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Release:

Jan 27, 2009

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Reviews for Lakeview Terrace

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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This angry black man wants a 'chocolate drop' of his own -- yes, 'chocolate drop' is actually used in this film! However, it's such a weak movie that you won't get offended.

Full Review Source: BET.com | comment Comment
07/03/09
Clay Cane
BET.com
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
04/23/09
Peter Keough
Boston Phoenix

It's ironic when the tactics it uses to ratchet up the suspense actually reduces the very real tension that gets communicated in its first half.

Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | comment Comment
02/12/09
Jeffrey Chen
Window to the Movies

As a thriller, it's passable, but at what point do we say to director Neil LaBute, "Enough already with the misogynistic themes"?

Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | comment Comment
01/21/09
Brian Webster
Apollo Guide

The race-baiting thriller Lakeview Terrace is exactly what you would expect from a screenplay by a Hollywood hack and an established playwright: some sharp dialogue grafted onto a credibility-stretching and familiar plot. [Blu-ray]

Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews | comment Comment
01/20/09
Peter Canavese
Groucho Reviews

Lakeview Terrace is not a hit by any means, but it is a lot better than Jackson's last film Snakes on a Plane and much improved for director Neil LaBute, known for his previous work on The Wicker Man.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Spectrum | comment Comment
01/04/09
Jolene Mendez
Entertainment Spectrum

...should satisfy fans of "(fill in the blank) from hell" thrillers.

Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | comment Comment
12/14/08
David Nusair
Reel Film Reviews

As a thriller it’s solid three-star tension. As a Samuel L. Jackson showcase it proves a man can only coast through so many motherfuckin’ or milquetoastin’ turns before having to display his full and overpowering talent.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
12/05/08
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine

The yawning chasm between the film’s aspirations to social significance and its cheese-o-licious straight-to-video construction make it a chucklesome guilty pleasure.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
12/05/08
Trevor Johnston
Time Out

A potboiler with pretensions that's never really at the races.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
12/05/08
Leigh Singer
Channel 4 Film

It’s a terrifically unstable performance that is admirably matched by the exasperated victims. The ending is too allegorical for its own health, but this is intelligent cinema.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
12/05/08
James Christopher
Times [UK]

From certain angles, Lakeview Terrace may look neurotic or even reactionary, but I found it bracingly tactless, particularly because interracial couples are still something of a taboo in modern Hollywood.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
12/05/08
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]

Yet despite the crudeness that finally overtakes Lakeview Terrace, it may be a more accurate representation of racial attitudes in Los Angeles than many inhabitants would care to admit.

Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | comment 1 Comment
12/05/08
David Gritten
Daily Telegraph

After multiplex clinkers like Jumper and Cleaner, Lakeview Terrace does give Jackson somewhere to move that actually brings the house down.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
12/05/08
Tim Evans
Sky Movies

Lacking even a Changing Lanes level of insight into America’s racial partition, this old-school, domestic-invasion thriller still has Samuel L Jackson’s twisted enforcer to push the right buttons.

Full Review Source: Total Film | comment Comment
12/05/08
Total Film

Watching this film is like stretching a spring and then letting it go again… and again… gripping and utterly absorbing.

Full Review Source: Heart 106.2 | comment Comment
12/05/08
Heart 106.2

Having an angry Samuel L Jackson as your nasty neighbour would be anybody's idea of bad news. Tense and terrifying, this is a smart thriller.

Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | comment Comment
12/05/08
Mark Adams
Daily Mirror [UK]

It’s uncomfortable viewing.

Full Review Source: Sun Online | comment Comment
12/05/08
Sun Online

But this cop, played with wicked finesse by Jackson while the script allows, deserves the chance to strut his hour in the smoke-free sun.

Full Review Source: Financial Times | comment Comment
12/05/08
Nigel Andrews
Financial Times

Lakeside Terrace allows the antagonism to simmer just so, and then, regrettably, lets it boil over in a climax of gunplay and a swathe of Californian brush fires, perhaps the most crashingly symbolic conflagration since Apocalypse Now.

Full Review Source: Independent | comment Comment
12/05/08
Anthony Quinn
Independent
 
 
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Latest News for Lakeview Terrace

January 17, 2009: Worst case scenario moviemaking, with interracial mating as the cinematic incendiary device of choice, along with Jackson's honed terror tactics that can make you shrivel with the slightest disapproving snarl. Opens in new window
More...

January 13, 2009: Interracial mating as the cinematic incendiary device of choice, and it's not white racists that are made to seethe about cross-racial romance, but oddly enough, black folks. Reality check, please. Opens in new window
More...

December 05, 2008: UK Critics Consensus: Writers Warm to Madagascar 2; UK Critics Liked Lakeview Terrace
With thirteen new releases in the UK cinemas this weekend, let Rotten Tomatoes help you sort the tinsel from the turkeys. We have animals on the loose in Madagascar: Escape 2... More...

October 20, 2008: Sam Jackson Talks Lakeview Terrace: Taking The Tough Questions Opens in new window
More...

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