Alas, LaBute loses it entirely in the third and final act, when he yields entirely to genre convention and allows it all to explode into a shoot-out of the utmost silliness.

| Feb 1, 2018

| Original Score: C | Feb 18, 2012

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

| Original Score: B- | Sep 7, 2011

| Original Score: C | May 6, 2011

As a thriller it's solid three-star tension. As a Samuel L. Jackson showcase it proves a man can only coast through so many motherfuckin' or milquetoastin' turns before having to display his full and overpowering talent.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2008

The yawning chasm between the film's aspirations to social significance and its cheese-o-licious straight-to-video construction make it a chucklesome guilty pleasure.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/6 | Dec 5, 2008

It's a terrifically unstable performance that is admirably matched by the exasperated victims. The ending is too allegorical for its own health, but this is intelligent cinema.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2008

From certain angles, Lakeview Terrace may look neurotic or even reactionary, but I found it bracingly tactless, particularly because interracial couples are still something of a taboo in modern Hollywood.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2008

Yet despite the crudeness that finally overtakes Lakeview Terrace, it may be a more accurate representation of racial attitudes in Los Angeles than many inhabitants would care to admit.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2008

But this cop, played with wicked finesse by Jackson while the script allows, deserves the chance to strut his hour in the smoke-free sun.

| Dec 5, 2008

Lakeside Terrace allows the antagonism to simmer just so, and then, regrettably, lets it boil over in a climax of gunplay and a swathe of Californian brush fires, perhaps the most crashingly symbolic conflagration since Apocalypse Now.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2008

Happily, it's not only a return to form for the one-time Mormon and agent provocateur, it also offers Samuel L Jackson his first decent part in years.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 5, 2008

The actors make it watchable, but with these incendiary themes, 'watchable' isn't exactly a wildfire.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 18, 2008

Despite his Mason/Dixon-stoking diva stylings, I sincerely doubt Sam Jack will gain as much eventual YouTube infamy as LaBute's last leading man.

Full Review | Sep 22, 2008

Lakeview Terrace is a serviceable enough popcorn exercise in a few floundering Angelenos who can't just get along.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 19, 2008

The movie's only mark of restraint is the absence of an earthquake.

| Sep 19, 2008

Jackson hasn't had a role this good or this complex in many a moon, even if the rote ending betrays the complexity of the set-up.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 19, 2008

A racial thriller that may be the feel-bad movie of the summer.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 19, 2008