Arlington Road

ARLINGTON ROAD

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: language, thematic elements, violence

Rated:

Terrorism has been something of a hot spot for American audiences over the previous few years, particularly in the light of our own nation's problems with various organizations. Arlington Road hits a nerve with the viewer because of the speculation it raises toward seemingly single-handed attacks against the American people. It's a brainy thriller with lots of tense thrills and a truly shocking twist ending... but it's also somewhat flat in terms of character development. The film opens with a little boy struggling down the street. With every step of his worn sneakers, blood spatters onto the pavement. Soon it's running down his arms from a mangled and badly burned hand. Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges) is on his way home after a day of teaching a college course on terrorism, and comes across the child in the middle of Arlington Road. Racing him to the hospital, he's mollified to realize this kid lives across the street and he doesn't even know his name.

The boy belongs to Oliver and Cheryl Lang (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack). Brady nearly blew his hand off when his friends dared him to wire all their fireworks together and fire them at the same time. He is introduced to Michael's son Grant (Spencer Treat Clark) and the boys become fast friends. It's been little more than a year since Michael's wife, a federal agent, was killed in a raid. Since then he's been brooding over her death, trying to forgive the FBI for making such a drastic mistake, and come to grips with his own insecurities as a father. His girlfriend Brooke (Hope Davis) encourages him to let go. She likes the Lang family, but Michael is convinced Oliver isn't what he seems. The architect seems overly secretive about his work and is forwarded mail addressed to someone else. Wanting to know more about his perfect all-American neighbors, Michael starts running back traces. What he finds is far from reassuring.

He might have a home-grown terrorist living across the street, heavily involved in his son's life, and planning a mass-scale attack against some public building. Or it could all just be as Brooke suggests, his paranoia and jealousy for Grant's friendship with Oliver reaching a peak. Arlington Road is a thinking man's thriller. The ending takes you by such surprise you're compelled to watch it a second time to see how the pieces fall into place. It's not A Beautiful Mind in the sense that it messes with your brain; rather it pulls you along at a rapid pace into a growing nightmare. It's very realistic... what would you do if you discovered one day the people across the street were terrorists? The scares are real and come in quantities; bad guys always show up where you least expect -- or want to see -- them. Michael and Brooke are such amateur sleuths you wonder if they've ever watched a crime show. You don't peel out of a parking lot when you've seen something suspicious, or leave frantic messages on each other's answering machines.

There were times when I was frustrated with the hero and heroine for being so stupid and obvious. The script is decent (it won an award for the best Independent written project by previously unpublished screenwriters) but it's the ending that holds up. Most people would consider it morbid but it's very realistic and clever. Even said, there were things I didn't like about Arlington Road. The violence wasn't all that graphic, certainly nowhere near the R-rating it was slapped with. We see some blood obviously in the opening scenes, as well as witness footage of the aftermath of terrorist strikes. A building explodes and we observe carnage on the street. Some people are shot and killed in a flashback of an FBI raid. Two men struggle and hit one another, bloodying up each other's noses. The only sexual content is mild -- just a shot of Brooke climbing into bed beside Michael. For me, it was the language that really ran this film into the ground.

There was none during the first half of the film, and then four f-words popped up in one conversation midway through. Two more were thrown in later, along with at least seven abuses of GD, and several of Jesus. To me it seems gratuitous and irresponsible. Arlington Road will be popular with the thinking set, but too morbid and dark for many viewers. It's more than a good thriller but also complicated by its own insecurities.