Arlington Road Review
by Frankie Paiva (swpstke AT aol DOT com)August 1st, 1999
Arlington Road (R) ****
Starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins
Directed by Mark Pellington
A Review by Frankie Paiva
I don't care how early we are into the year, there will be nothing like this movie until the new millennium. Finally, a film has come along that challenges the traditional action/suspense genre and gives new meanings to the words paranoia and suspense.
Michael Faraday (Bridges) teaches a domestic terrorism class at the local college, it's his way of remembering his wife who died by accident in a confused shootout at a house in the woods. After helping the next door neighbor's boy to the hospital (in a frightening and brilliantly executed opening sequence) he realizes that he doesn't even know the people who have been living across the street for a year.
Oliver and Cheryl Lang (Robbins & Joan Cusack) are the creepy neighbors, the boys begin to bond but paranoid Michael senses something odd about them. He begins to hunt around to see who Oliver really is, much to the objections of girlfriend Hope Davis, and discovers he was charged for trying to blow up a building when he was 15. He also discovers a hidden blueprint behind a painting in their house.
Will Oliver strike again? As paranoia mounts, he is driven into insanity with nowhere to turn.
This film uses blackouts extremely well, and I just can't get over how original and disturbing the ending was. To know that their actually are people out there like that is enough to frighten a heck lot more than anything else at the cinema. Arlington Road belongs in the Top 10 Best Films of the Year and earns my outstanding **** stars.
A Review by Frankie Paiva
The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer
E-Mail at me [email protected]
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
