Lakeview Terrace
by Neil LaBute
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Actor: Justin Chambers, Kerry Washington, Patrick Wilson, Ron Glass, Samuel L. JacksonDirector: Neil LaBute
Brand: Sony
Producer: David Loughery
Writer: David Loughery
Producer: James Lassiter
Producer: Jeffrey Graup
Producer: Joe Pichirallo
Producer: John Cameron
Writer: Howard Korder
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); Cantonese (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Korean (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.40:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-01-27
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Lakeview Terrace
DVD Review: If bad were rabbit droppings, this film would be elephant dung
Summary: 1 Stars
Terrible, beyond words terrible, exasperatingly awful, like if this is an examination of race relations then Half-Backed is a homily on the perils of drug abuse. Where even to begin.
The premise in itself had possibility, the notion of a white man experiencing racism on account of being married to a black woman, it's a theme that hasn't been explored nearly as much as the prejudice experienced by black men who date white woman and vise versa (Zebrahead being the only film I can recall delving into that theme), and in the first 15 minutes you think that you are in fact going to receive a thorough treatment of this issue. The scene of Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson) waking up, looking at a picture of his dead wife and praying is a humanizing one, leading the viewer to believe that he/she is dealing with a morally complex persona as opposed to a stock character bigot. How quickly every character descends into a one-dimensional composition seemingly written to enforce stereotypes as opposed to examining them is frustrating.
Firstly, Chris Matson (Patrick Wilson) is entirely unlikeable. In fact, while we are supposed to believe he is a taciturn intellectual, he in fact comes off as an inarticulate, tedious, shallow and wholly disagreeable character who, while Berkley educated and married to a black woman, has a view of race relations that comes of as nothing more than a banal, simplistic compilation of cliches. It is impossible to figure out why his wife Lisa (Kerry Washington) would ever be with him. When he is approached by Samuel L. Jackson while smoking in his car and listening to rap music, this simple and cliched notion of Chris liking rap music while his wife doesn't somehow passes for a viable example of how you cannot stereotype people by race (despite the fact that this movie does nothing but that.) The fact that rap music has reached a vast level of cross-cultural pollination renders it far too simplistic a device to explore the differences between blacks and whites in regards to stereotypes. It is also spurious and simplistic. Of all the ways you can illuminate the characters existing as individuals not confined by racial templates, they chose this cheap, cringe worthy example. It is a dominant theme in American movies, choosing some simple, non-stereotypical characteristic and superimposing it on completely stereotypical characters to reveal depth when all you are really showing is bad writing.
Despite this wholly predictable difference, Chris tells Able that they actually have a great deal in common. But for the entirety of the movie the viewer is never presented with even a semblance of an example of what these two have in common. There is no exploration of their characters, no scenes of them interacting as human beings with each other outside of having sex or arguing. And all of their arguments center around the same tired theme of him saying something racially contentious or being hesitant about having children, followed by his wife getting upset and Chris frustratingly losing the ability to communicate, as if he were a 2nd year French student attempting to dissect La perception du changement. Beyond that and without spoiling the plot, there are two scenes involving his wife being in peril or possibly injured and he reacts in a completely sterile, inhuman way. Who could countenance something so horrendous happening to their spouse while reacting with less visceral emotion than someone who was late to work or had spilled coffee on their keyboard? A scene begging for empathy, rage, anything real or revelatory is about as insipid as a dentist's gloves digging around in your mouth.
I won't get into the ridiculousness of how the movie ends or the circumstances at work that affect Abel, needless to say they are unrealistic to the point of retardation. More tired Hollywood cliches that point to the further descent of American culture into the abyss.
Suspension of disbelief is necessary in all films, sometimes you have to do unrealistic things to push the story forward or prove a broader social point. What this film seems to do is take a composite sketch of the type of white American that Martin Lawrence described in his stand up routine, you know, that inhumanely dull, sanitized, humorless, emotionless, craven automaton who is emasculated and walks with inflexible knees. His foil is the stereotypically angry, irrational, hyper-masculine black man. I cannot imagine anything worse than exploring race relations through such cardboard and intrinsically bias affirming characters.
This movie also reinforces the idea that there is an acceptable level of racism that can be displayed against whites. In fact, the film makes it seem as if Chris's mentioning that black men treat him in a prejudiced manner is in fact more racist and contemptible than any of the racism he experiences. This is a salient theme in the media. Emasculating white men, talking about their lack of sexual prowess, athletic ability, soulfulness or innate coolness is omnipresent. It is a common expression for white people to say "I am so white" when they are denigrating themselves in one of the above ways. Is it acceptable for anyone to associate their culture, ethnic group or "race" with such negative characteristics or for the media to playfully propagate these ideas as if it were normal? Is it normal to watch Chris constantly genuflect and walk on eggshells least he say something offensive while the other characters have free reign to say anything they want? Personally, I think it would be better if the culture allowed for a more open expression of prejudices on all sides. Though unintentional, Chris almost seems like the ironic product of a white man who cannot express anything to his wife out of fear of being racist. Wouldn't it be much healthier for Chris to be able to make his unintentionally prejudiced assumptions and then have a dialogue with his wife so that he could grow instead of constantly being castigated for failing to be the mythical 90s white multicultural MTV liberal that never really existed? Everyone has prejudices, it is human, we have to prejudge because we don't have all of the information. One get's information by colloquy and experience. Our cultural is becoming so toxic in this regard. Where this film had the opportunity to become such a dialogue, it rather chose to reaffirm the most simplistic, harmful and damaging notions that blacks and whites have for each other in contemporary America.
The fact is, upon reaching certain levels of awareness, most people tend to shake off the shackles of cultural biases and assumptions. Murakami, Kafka, Camus, Faulkner, Omar Khayyam, Chinua Achebe, regardless of time or place, many of our great minds in philosophy and literature converge at a similar point of understanding towards themselves and the other. It is the notion that many cultural prejudices are illusionary and myopic, that the meat of the human experience exists outside of our cultural experiences, this is the real point of exploration for inter-racial relationships. But instead of showing how these two characters had transcended the trappings of racial bigotry while Abel is stuck in his own unenlightened paradigmatic paralysis, they rather tend to reinforce the theme the movie is purportedly against. You cannot show two completely incompatible people who speak at cross purposes about racial issues, have the antagonist berate the couple for their lack of understanding, and then offer no counterpoint. None of the prejudice or bigotry is refuted, no human understanding or connection is ever shown between the husband and wife, one could almost leave this film thinking that Abel Turner was right if it were not for his psychotic impulses. And for that, the pathetically cliched plot, the reflection of American devolution via Hollywood retrofitting the same movie with the same tired devices over and over, the fact that movies like this make prejudiced whites even more inveterate because it reinforces the idea that there are socially different levels of tolerable racism based on one's own "race", this movie is a steaming pile of garbage to be avoided by anyone who still has a desire or ability to think about or see the complexities in life.
Description of Lakeview Terrace
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