Review of Lakeview Terrace

I really liked this movie, its a situation you can identify with, annoying neighbor with deep- set views and prejudices and everyone knows what a racially charged environment LA is. Samuel Jackson was excellent as said neighbor who clearly had not got over the untimely passing of his wife. Patrick Wilson showed great poise having to deal with a black father-in-law clearly not happy he married his daughter and now a cop-neighbor with similar entrenched views. Director Neil Labute builds the tension up nicely and at no point is there a direct confrontation between the two characters, this is more psychological warfare than physical conflict.

I only have one gripe with the film and it revolves around the phone of the assailant who Jackson set up to trash the home, this would have been picked up by the cops who do very thorough searches of properties and then when patrick/chris gets the phone, why would he call the first number/listen to voicemail and even more bizarrely why would Abel/samuel answer the phone, he would have seen who the call was coming from. There should have been a better way of implicating Abel than that. Nevertheless, I thought the ending was done superbly, Abel finally losing it when Chris for the first time mentioned the taboo subject of Abel's dead wife. Anyone who liked pacific heights, crash or unlawful entry will love this.