It falls off the tracks about half way through and never manages to regain control.
I was excited to see an entertaining neighborly conflict based on racial tensions… the previews looked very promising. Oh, how wrong I was.
“Lakeview Terrace” begins by building palpable tension as a newly married interracial couple move into an affluent area somewhere in Los Angeles. The only problem seems to be the cop next door, who immediately flinches at the couple’s racial make up for reasons we find out later in the movie.
The first half of the film manages to create chills despite a few clichéd scenes and an overly typical Samuel L. Jackson performance as the angry black man. I mean, how many times is he going to play this character in a movie? He is more one dimensional than Tommy Lee Jones in the 90′s.
Later in the film, the plausibility alarm bells start to reverberate as the conflict becomes more and more ludicrous. I can’t count the number of times that I unintentionally laughed along with the rest of the audience. So much of the final third is just plain silly.
“Lakeview Terrace” fails on virtually every level. It is barely worth a rental. Perhaps it would be best to wait for a late night cable appearance when Letterman is showing a repeat.
