View from 'Lakeview Terrace' not breathtaking

While it may not seem like a topic splayed across the silver screen very often these days, the topic of racism is an all too common occurrence in our society. It divides us when we should be equals, causes us to make assumptions of people we never get the chance to actually know, and according the film "Lakeview Terrance," starring Samuel L. Jackson, it causes us to try to severely harass and even attempt to kill our new next door neighbors.

Said neighbors are a bi-racial couple, the black Lisa (Kerry Washington) and the white Chris (Patrick Wilson). While it seems like they have found the perfect starter home in the cozy, dreamlike suburban dwellings of Lakeview Circle, they get a harsh wakeup call from their next-door neighbor Abel Turner (Jackson). At first he seems to be curious about the couple moving next-door, seeing Lisa with an older black man, and assuming the white man moving the boxes is her mover. Yet his assumptions are totally thrown out the window when he snoops on his new neighbors and sees the white man and the black woman kiss. This sets him on a passive-aggressive harassment spree that soon turns all-too-aggressive toward the new couple.

However, Turner has the color issue on his side. That color? Blue. He is an officer of the law and an aggressive one at that. This gives him more leeway to further antagonize the couple without back lash from his fellow cops, something he takes advantage of until the very end of the film.

While Turner's motivations for hating the biracial couple so much become clear near the end of the film, it seems that Jackson's motivations as an actor seem to be lost. His character seems one-dimensional as he plugs in his performance by taking bits and pieces from previous roles, clumping them all together and creating an almost stereotypical Jackson performance as an "angry mo-fo." However, the criminally underrated actors who play the biracial couple try their best to shine like the lights through their bedroom window and give great performances as a couple trying to work through their problems together.

It is their performances that give the most intimate moments of the film, and that's not referring to their sex scene. Their different races become an underlying issue in their marriage which is suddenly awakened by Turner's mean streak. However, these moments are few and far in between to Jackson's over-the-top scenes.

The film seems almost like a play, with few main characters, confined house sets and the constant flash fire metaphor that seems to be pushed into your face as apparent fires of racism burning everything in its path. This might be because the director, Neil LaBute, started out as an edgy playwright and film director of his plays usually about controversial topics such as beauty in mass culture. He shows his quality as an intimate director, especially with Wilson, who is at his best as a theater actor.

However, pursuing overall tension and thrills throughout the film, his style seems to be patched together. Some shaky camerawork here, some Hitchcockian moments of revelation and fear there.

It all adds up to a film that's so-so instead of a film that is so in your face about the topic of racism.