Column:
'Lakeview Terrace' disappoints halfway through
'Lakeview Terrace' introduces issues and possible plot lines just to ignore them for action.
Published Sept. 25, 2008
I was left with so many questions at the end of "Lakeview Terrace" I thought I would share some with you before my review, so we could exist together in this mindset of confusion.
What tired plot can Samuel L. Jackson not make watchable? Will Smith helped produce this film? Is global warming actually still a hot-button topic? Do you ever get the impression Samuel L. Jackson is just doing his best Samuel L. Jackson impersonation these days?
But the better question might be, what the hell happened in the middle of this film? And I don't mean it got overly complex and lost me in its philosophical motifs. I mean it feels like the first half of the film actually had motifs and began to be leading to at least some vague cultural discussion. And then about halfway through it sort of feels like everybody involved just said, "Fuck it, let's just give Samjack a chainsaw and let him shoot some stuff." And indeed they did.
Now, before I digress, I should say this might not have been a bad thing entirely. A crazed Jackson angrily sawing hedges that barely infringed on his yard and shouting, "Bring them titties out!" at a bachelor party is probably worth the price of admission. And though it was developing plotlines, the film never really seemed to have much of a grasp on what it was trying to say. Therefore, simply going the Samuel L. Jackson self-parody route and saving us the trouble of actually thinking about anything on any sort of deeper level in favor of the ole' "But wait, there's more," suspense formula might have been a blessing in disguise.
Before the fireworks, the premise is simple enough. Jackson plays an LAPD officer who has become the self-appointed neighborhood watchman for his own suburban block. At the start of the film, Jackson meets his brand new neighbors, the Mattsons, a newlywed couple a few years removed from UC-Berkeley who just bought their Los Angeles dream home. There's only one problem: Mr. Mattson is white. Mrs. Mattson is black. And apparently Samuel L. doesn't believe in grey.
Chris Mattson (Patrick Wilson) and Abel Turner (Jackson) clashed on much more than this. Chris smokes self-made cigarettes, likes the hip-hop and then there's the aforementioned global warming support. Abel is a right-wing, by-the-book cop. But their real conflict simply comes down to the interracial relationship. Once this dynamic is established it quickly falls into the ole' crazy neighbor noir genre.
The actual racial tension is never truly explored in any real depth, though. It was brought up in a few passing arguments between the newlyweds, (who generally seemed to make the most out of their fairly typecast characters) but they always seemed to be near the edge of something interesting that never quite delivered. And when Chris and Abel finally confront the issue at a bar, Abel's demons are exposed to be caused by an unclear experience with his deceased wife and her former white supervisor, which seems to portray his racism as something so random it could be interchanged with a hatred of clowns or cricket players given slightly different circumstances.
But not even underdeveloped plotlines could derail this hatred. Thankfully, Jackson with a gun is barely captivating enough to ignore this for a little while.