LAKEVIEW TERRACE

“LAKEVIEW TERRACE” (Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson & Kerry Washington)

I liked this movie until they decided to make Samuel L. Jackson’s racially biased cop a raving lunatic... To me, Samuel’s character, Abel Turner, was the good guy throughout most of the film. I’ll have to give away more of the plot than I normally like, but here’s the scenario; Abel lives in an affluent neighborhood with his teenaged daughter & pre-teen son. Mom’s absence is explained later. Abel’s ability to afford such a ‘luxury’ home on a cop’s salary is explained with one sentence, “Good thing I bought 20 years ago.”
Abel patrols the neighborhood nightly, turns on large spotlights to discourage would-be burglars from coming onto his property & insists that his children speak proper English, mind their manners & respect their elders... Yet, somehow he is portrayed as ‘the bad guy’. Abel has a Latino partner who seems a bit uneasy as he rides along in their squad car, but when the pair are called to a domestic disturbance where an ex-husband is threatening to kill his one time spouse & their child, Abel reacts in a professional manner while apprehending the would-be murderer who has shot at the officers 3 times. Abel has every right to blow this jerk away & yet he just scares the bejeezus out of the S.O.B. When the ‘should-be-grateful’ attempted murderer files a lawsuit against Abel, he is put on probation.
That’s Abel’s background; from what I witnessed, a caring, loving father who actually disciplines his children (The cad!) A good cop who risks his life to keep the streets safe for law abiding citizens & a man who cares about his home & neighbors - yet all the while clearly being pegged as the bad guy simply because he doesn’t like seeing a mixed-race couple moving in next door.
Which brings us to the ‘good guy’ Chris Mattson (Patrick Wilson) Chris is a pretentious jerk – whiter than milk, he thinks he’s hip because he listens to loud, annoying rap. He secretly smokes outside & carelessly tosses his butts into Abel’s yard. His own father-in-law doesn’t like him & makes it very clear that he doesn’t want this man to father his grandchildren – yet when Abel makes a racially suggestive statement concerning his marriage, Chris is outraged & acts as if the fact that he’s white & his wife Lisa (Kerry Washington) is black has never been an ‘issue’ with anyone until Abel came along!
The opening concern deals with one of Abel’s spotlights shining into the Mattson’s bedroom window... The simple solution is to buy a set of dark curtains, but instead Mr. & Mrs. Newcomer decide to complain to their cop neighbor who is trying to provide his children with protection to turn the spotlight off instead... Abel says he will, then doesn’t... I’d have done the same thing, except I’d have said, “Can’t you people afford curtains? – I’m trying to protect ‘our’ properties!”
Instead of making the logical solution by putting up curtains, Chris decides it would be more neighborly to set up his own set of bright lights & purposely aim them toward Abel’s bedroom window... & still, Abel’s the BAD GUY?
The Mattson’s have a pool in their backyard which is in plain view of Abel’s children’s bedrooms – they get to witness the couple getting naked & having sex to ‘Christen’ the luxury item. Abel is again regarded as a jerk because of ‘the way’ he complains about the frisky couple allowing his children to view their dalliance.
Time after time, Abel is regarded as the jerk, when to my mind, the Mattson’s were the rotten neighbors – I’d have been more than happy to live in Abel’s neighborhood, I would hate to have a**holes like Chris & Lisa living next door.
After a chance meeting at a local bar, Abel explains to Chris why inter-racial couples ‘bother’ him - & the story of what happened to his wife is revealed; so he actually has a reason to be somewhat resentful, whereas Chris’s father-in-law’s reasons for disliking him seemed to be because he was white & he married his daughter, yet dad-in-law isn’t portrayed as a ‘monster’ (Probably because they cast ‘Barney Miller’ cop Ron Glass in the role)
Eventually, of course, Abel goes overboard & becomes a raving maniac, but there’s absolutely no reason for it – HE’S the GOOD GUY! So instead of creating something new in the genre, the filmmakers fall back into ‘everybody expects the edgy cop to blow a gasket & go stark raving mad, so let’s give ‘em what they want!’
I hated the ending, it was predictable & totally implausible, as well as sending the message that most cops are trigger happy lunatics that will snap at the drop of a hat.
Samuel seemed to have a good time with this role, though; yes, his icy glares & wicked smirks gave cause for one to believe he wasn’t as ‘nice’ a neighbor as one might believe, but his deeds were honorable for the first two/thirds of the film & it was only for the sake of creating a ‘tension-filled’ showdown in the final scenes that they took this complex character & made him an unreasonable whack-job...