The writing is terrible. I turned it off with a hr to go, it was too phony and stupid i just couldn't fake interest anymore

This is a pure example of "good actors don't make a good film", as everything else is way below mediocre. I can only recommend you to NOT watch this movie, it is a complete waste of time.

So many unnecessary characters in this film that dropped this movie rating for me even lower then what i originally watched.... I wish this movie story was handled better in a more realistic way.

This flick had good potential but it was just Too Silly to be any good. Which is unfortunate because the main actors are so talented.

In the writing school videos I sometimes watch one of the top tips they tell you is 'Do not start off your efforts by describing characters waking up and getting out of bed.' The first ten minutes, we see the main character slowly get up and then five minutes later - two people in bed with no (!) real action going on. I confess, that's as far as I got with this - it just seemed like it was some moral outrage thing and well...life is too short to be wasting time on lame things like this

The movie is obviously a very deliberate provocation (and one that I would argue is completely legitimate) but the issue is that the movie gets sillier and sillier as it goes along. By the end it just goes completely off the rails which undermines the tension.

Filme elegante com nuances incríveis de um verdadeiro cinema.

Terrible movie, should have been titled ‘The Crazy N. Next Door'. Easy skip.

This movie gets more irritating and pointless with every minute that goes by. Silly and horribly annoying. Jackson was great but everything else was garbage. A very lazy put together "fighting back against an unreasonable neighbor" concept. I've seen worse neighborhood conflict in an elderly housing community than this.

'COULD' have been a good movie but it should be called-HOW STUPID ARE YOU? especially to the husband played by Patrick Wilson

A newlywed interracial couple, Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington), are moving into their first home. Chris's first exchanges with their neighbor, widowed and longtime LAPD police officer and African-American man Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson), have somewhat hostile undertones, with Abel making comments about Chris' smoking (which Abel later exposes to Lisa) and listening to hip hop music, and making remarks about his race in his relationship with Lisa. The following night, Chris and Lisa have sex in their swimming pool. Unbeknownst to them, Abel's children, Marcus and Celia, are watching them. Abel arrives home and witnesses the spectacle. Angered, he repositions his house security floodlights to shine into Chris and Lisa's bedroom window, keeping them awake. Abel begins to insinuate to Chris that he disapproves of his marriage and that he wants them to move out of their new neighborhood. One evening, Chris and Lisa hear noises downstairs and find the tires on Chris' car slashed. Suspecting Abel, they call the police, who are unable to do anything because of Abel's status within the LAPD. Chris retaliates by shining his own floodlights into Abel's bedroom. Lisa later reveals she is pregnant, creating conflict with Chris, who does not yet want children. Meanwhile, Abel is suspended without pay for abusing a suspect, inciting more fury within him... Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus reads, "This thriller about a menacing cop wreaking havoc on his neighbors is tense enough but threatens absurdity when it enters into excessive potboiler territory." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a very positive review, awarding it his highest rating of four stars and saying: "Some will find it exciting. Some will find it an opportunity for an examination of conscience. Some will leave feeling vaguely uneasy. Some won't like it and will be absolutely sure why they don't, but their reasons will not agree. Some will hate elements that others can't even see. Some will only see a thriller. I find movies like this alive and provoking, and I'm exhilarated to have my thinking challenged at every step of the way." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle also enjoyed the film, saying: "In its overall shape and message, Lakeview Terrace is a conventional suspense thriller, but the details kick it up a notch. ... The fun of Lakeview Terrace is not in what happens but in how it happens." J.R. Jones of the Chicago Reader called the film "one of the toughest racial dramas to come out of Hollywood since the fires died down – much tougher, for instance, than Paul Haggis's hand-wringing Oscar winner Crash." Dennis Harvey of Variety said that Lakeview Terrace "delivers fairly tense and engrossing drama" but "succumbs to thriller convention." Anthony Lane of The New Yorker said that "the first hour of the film ... feels dangerous, necessary, and rife with comic disturbance," but added that "the later stages ... overheat and spill into silliness." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film two stars out of four, saying that "the first two-thirds of Lakeview Terrace offer a little more subtlety and complexity than the seemingly straightforward premise would afford, but the climax is loud, dumb, generic, and over-the-top." Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe said that "the movie might have something to say about black racism, but the conversations go nowhere, and the clichés of the genre take over." Sura Wood of The Hollywood Reporter said: "[The idea of] a black actor cast as the virulent bigot, with the object of his campaign of harassment the young interracial couple who move in next door, could be viewed as a novel twist. But the film, absent a sense of place and populated by repellent or weak characters, soon devolves into an increasingly foul litany of events." Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal gave it one half of a star out of five, and called the film a "joyless and airless suspense thriller." (via Wikipedia) We have seen this sort of storyline a few times before. Like "Pacific Heights" starring Michael Keaton as the antagonist. "Lakeview Terrace" has a stretched story with not much to get excited about and as mentioned ends up in clichés of the genre. The characters are a bit weak and you struggle to cheer for couple played by Wilson and Washington while Samuel L. Jackson does Samuel L. Jackson as usual. Trivia: The plot was loosely based on real life events in Altadena, California involving an interracial couple, John and Mellaine Hamilton, and Irsie Henry, an African-American Los Angeles police officer. The saga was documented in a series of articles in both the Pasadena Star News and the Pasadena Weekly beginning in 2002. Journalist Andre Coleman received a Los Angeles' Press Club Award for Excellence in Journalism for his series of articles in the Weekly. Henry was eventually fired by the LAPD for his actions. (via Wikipedia)

Strange. Not entertaining and weird

The movie is obviously a very deliberate provocation (and one that I would argue is completely legitimate) but the issue is that the movie gets sillier and sillier as it goes along. By the end it just goes completely off the rails which undermines the tension.

Terribly produced rot.

A fairly predictable thriller that feels off tonally as it clumsily leans into racial and political differences and uses them as the driving motivators for such an inconceivably heightened level of escalating conflict between these two neighbors. Still found this pretty easy to stay focused during as the pacing kept things moving, even if what I was seeing felt less and less realistically possible. Samuel L. Jackson Binge: Jackson is meant to play the bad guy and while his character is frustratingly rigid in what he expects from others, the writers unsuccessfully tried to create sympathy at times for some of these totally archaic beliefs and over the top reactions from him. While his portrayal likely demanded much of the audience to suspend some acceptance of reality, it became a more enjoyable perforamnce once you did. SLJ January #25

Lakeview Terrace is stressful because it feels like something that could really happen. In fact, this movie is based on actual events, which makes it even more scary. And while this film does escalate into the melodramatic at the end, most of it is a realistic thriller that makes you feel as helpless as the protagonists. You can't pick your neighbors, but hope that you never get one like Abel Turner.

This was a good movie and script.

6 bags and the next movie about racial tension since AHX, oh man. SLJ is a beast, and he does some bad stuff here but like Ed Norton in AHX or Joaquin in Joker you have a deeper understanding of the character. The problem is that Lakeview Terrace could have been a litter better written and executed, but I still loved SLJ in this. And for the record, I reviewed Bone Tomahawk but it didn't post to RT. When am I gonna get "Super Reviewer" status? I've done like over 100 movies now and no one even cares. I wanna just quit but I can't. To quit watching movies is to perish.

I was rooting for Abel. Then I wasn’t. Then I was. Then I wasn’t. Then I was. Then I wasn’t.

Intense story that becomes a bit over the top but is elevated by some great performances.