In its overall shape and message, "Lakeview Terrace" is a conventional suspense thriller, but the details kick it up a notch. There's a racial element that's unexpected. There's a narrative strategy that's slightly innovative. And then there's Samuel L. Jackson's face and everything he can do with it: the impassive look. The burning-holes-through-concrete stare. The smile that's the opposite of reassuring. And the laugh that says, "You're so dead." There may be no actor working today with a better sense of how to use his face and what each expression communicates to an audience.
Directed but not scripted by Neil LaBute, the film continues LaBute's ongoing investigation into the sheer hell that is other people. We first meet Abel (Jackson) as he's waking up on a typical weekday. He says his prayers, gets the kids up and serves them breakfast. He endures wise remarks from his teenage daughter, then spends some time folding the kids' laundry. He's a widowed dad and seems like a nice enough guy. And then the new neighbors move in.
The fun of "Lakeview Terrace" is not in what happens but in how it happens. The fun is in gauging Abel's rage, as well as his thinking, and in enjoying Jackson's virtuosity. As a director, LaBute knows exactly the hand he's playing with this film. He knows that he has a plot that just rearranges and recombines some suspense movie cliches, but he also knows he has some smart, unsettling dialogue, a handful of strong scenes and three good actors in the lead roles. Further, he knows that his movie will succeed if he does two things: if he lets Jackson be scary, and if he has Jackson's co-stars look frightened.
Produced by Will Smith, "Lakeview Terrace" stars Samuel L. Jackson as an embittered widower, LAPD sergeant and father of two, who has a hard time accepting his new neighbors, Patrick Wilson and Carrie Washington.
Slowly, inexorably, the animosity between these residents of suburban Los Angeles grows, along with the intense brush fires which are approaching.
Jackson knows how to play a villain as well as a hero and here his character has issues, is complex, has a back-story we learn and is thus all the more terrifying.
In one scene, his daughter has come by for a visit and the stern father's parenting skills leave a lot to be desired.
"Lakeview Terrace" has three fine performances all right. But the story grows more sinister as it moves along and with it credulity is strained, then jettisoned. It does make for a compelling thriller, but you can see the way it'll end a long way off.