Neil LaBute latest directorial effort is Lakeview Terrace.  LaBute’s earliest work (Your Friends & Neighbors, In the Company of Men) specialized in making the viewer uncomfortable.  In that regard, Lakeview Terrace is something of a return to form.  In past work, LaBute has made us squirm with gender issues.  This time he uses race.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Abel Turner, a widower, single father and member of the LAPD.  Turner is that rarest of mythical creatures, a Black conservative.  His years on the force have exposed him to the seedier side of life.  He has disdain for the “touchy-feely” side of liberalism and his views on race relations allow for integration at work but not much anywhere else.  His reaction to the loss of his wife has been to retreat to the suburbs and guard his son and daughter in a manner that borders on militant.  At first blush, he seems like one of those tough parents that a kid would be glad to have…once they’re no longer kids.

But as new neighbors move in next door, we start to see a new, uglier side of Turner.  Chris and Lisa Mattson (played by Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) are an interracial couple (he’s White, she’s Black) and this doesn’t sit well with Turner.  Turner sees Chris’ love of old school hip-hop as transparent example of trying too hard.  And in Turner’s eyes, Chris’ love for his wife is little more than a condescending fetish for Black women.  Turner and Chris have increasingly uncomfortable confrontations.  First over Chris’ flicking of cigarettes and then over Turner’s placement of security lights that illuminate the Mattson’s bedroom.

The dialogue given to Jackson is masterfully crafted.  He makes it clear that he’s not happy with his new neighbors’ interracial relationship.  But he speaks with the nuance of the cagiest of politicians.  Every time Chris tries to call out Turner’s racism, he ends up looking like the racist.  Even his own wife starts to question just how colorblind her husband actually is.   As Chris starts to look increasingly crazy and/or racist, it begins to strain their marriage.  Chris’ father-in-law (played by Ron Glass, best remembered as Harris from Barney Miller) isn’t Chris’ biggest fan.  But while the tension in their relationship is the same tension that any dad has watching his little girl grow up, Lisa starts to wonder if Chris’ opinion of Turner isn’t all that far removed from his opinion of her father. 

As Turner ratchets up the heat on the Mattson’s, their previously blissful marriage begins to disintegrate.  The movie does a wonderful job of showing how outside forces can undermine a marriage in unexpected ways. 

As good as the movie is in spots, it ultimately disappoints.  Unlike LaBute’s earlier works, Lakeview Terrace lets the viewer off the hook.  LaBute is a controversial director because he elicits such strong reactions from people.  In The Company Of Men starred Aaron Eckhart as the ugliest of misogynists.  His character was presented so unflinchingly that people still debate whether or not it was the character or the movie that actually hated women.  It was a good movie, but one difficult to watch.  Lakeview Terrace could have been a similar film.  But eventually the characters fall into easy-to-identify categories of “good guys” and “bad guys.”  It would have been much more interesting if both sides had been a little bit right and a little bit wrong. 

What could have been a fascinating exploration of an underexplored form of racism turns into your standard potboiler thriller.  Which is a shame, because it was thisclose to being great.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Pulp Fiction and 1 being The Man, Lakeview Terrace gets a 7.