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Lakeview Terrace

Movie Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: B

Overall Grade: B

I guess race movies are all the rage right now. We've been graced with the presence of several in the past few years. From the Academy Award winning Crash to the incredibly mediocre Crossing Over, there's no shortage of movies telling us to play nice with our fellow man. It's not necessarily a bad thing being that the message is good for human progression, I just wonder how long before these get played out and become a novelty like detective films, 50's sci-fi. Once that happens the message will either be so ingrained into our culture that it will have reshaped our society for the better, or it will backfire and people will just get annoyed by it. Well, here is one that will be considered part of a sort of golden age of race movies if it all pans out like that.

Lakeview Terrace is about a newly-wed interracial couple, Chris and Lisa Mattson (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) who moving into their first home. They run into trouble with their next-door neighbor Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson) who takes offense to their marriage. It's too bad for Chris and Lisa that Abel is a cop that has been serving for twenty-eight years when he starts to harass the couple. Flood-lights facing their house quickly turn into slashed tires and other improvable incidences. After being pushed to the breaking point, Chris tries to get even with Abel and their feud escalates far past anything the characters could have expected.

This movie isn't some sort of masterpiece but it did its job. I felt entertained until the end and it had some good symbolism coupled with a nice sentiment. Taking place in California, are wild fires that are brought up as a big issue throughout the entire movie. It escalates with every issue between the neighbor and it's really clever. For anyone that's not following: fire is a symbol of anger or rage and seems to come and go with the increasing and decreasing tension between Abel and the Mattsons. It isn't the most artistic or inventive symbolism, but I thought it was a nice little touch.

Like I said earlier the film is filled with tension and they pull that off pretty well. I found myself wondering what was going to happen between them next. Sometimes Abel plays nice as a front for his little game, and other times he just comes right out with the crazy.

The only big problem with his ever changing moods is they just make it too unrealistic; the bar

scene in particular comes to mind. Chris and Abel are sitting at a bar and they seem to be getting a long and have a heart-to-heart. The conversation does get heated and ends poorly but it just seems to civil for two people that were trying to sabotage each other's lives.

With that aside, the rest of the character development is done really well. We see how strict Abel is before the Mattson's even get to the neighborhood by how he treats his kids. Its reinforced through the entire movie by the type of police officer he is. The scene's with Abel on duty were somewhat unnecessary to the story, but they really rounded out his characters actions.

The deleted scenes were pretty inconsequential. They weren't good or bad because nothing really happens in them. They were mostly just add-ons to scenes, that were obviously deleted because they didn't' add anything to the movie. The only one that doesn't do that is the scene was Lisa pretends to seduce Abel. The scene was terrible and really would have ruined the mood of the movie.

The behind the scenes do make up for this though. It is broken into three segments, An Open House, Meet Your Neighbors, and Home Sweet Home. They cover the original inspirations for the film, the characters and setting, and anything that could have been left out of the first two categories. Some behind the scenes stuff can be really dreadful but I found myself really enjoying this. I think anyone interested in film making or films in general will get the same thing out of it.

I recommend this DVD but not just based on special features or lasting value. It isn't the best movie ever but something that is absolutely worth seeing once or twice.

Movie Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: B

Overall Grade: B