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Movie Overview
Cast
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Patrick Wilson
• Kerry Washington
Director
• Neil LaBute
MPAA Rating
PG-13 - for intense thematic material, violence, sexuality, language and some drug references
Lakeview Terrace (2008)

REVIEWS
NEWS
INTERVIEWS OTHER
OFCS Rating: 29% Rotten
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3/5
"This is the kind of movie where every bad guy has his decent side, every hero is merely half-hearted, and the genre beats we except from the story come buried in sidebars of dense characterization and unnecessary sideways subplotting."  PopMatters  Bill Gibron

C-
"Granted, this is hardly Wicker Man 2: NOT THE BEES!, but LaBute should be counted on for a movie with more teeth than what Lakeview Terrace is prepared to offer"  BrianOrndorf.com  Brian Orndorf

1.5/5
"by a wide margin, the director's weakest effort to date"  Filmcritic.com  Chris Cabin

5/10
"... a thunderously stupid ending that has all the markings of a heavy dose of production notes."  DVDTown.com  Christopher Long

C-
"Strong performances from its talented ensemble cast don't compensate for its narrative flaws."  ColeSmithey.com  Cole Smithey

2.5/4
"...should satisfy fans of "(fill in the blank) from hell" thrillers."  Reel Film Reviews  David Nusair

3.5/5
"An intriguing and provocative thriller."  Film Threat  Don R. Lewis

2/4
"What begins as a button-pushing think piece concludes by pushing all the wrong buttons and losing sight of the bigger picture."  DustinPutman.com  Dustin Putman

C+
"No matter how much the film wants to be an examination of race relations, it's really just a medium-grade potboiler, watchable but unmemorable."  EricDSnider.com  Eric D. Snider

2.5/4
"Lakeview Terrace waves bye-bye much earlier on than it should and that's a shame because it would have been so nice to see such lofty reflections getting along in a thriller for mass consumption."  eFilmCritic.com  Erik Childress

"Lakeview Terrace isn't anywhere as wacky as LaBute's Wicker Man remake, yet the two reveal an artist too caught up with his misanthropic conceits to notice the ridiculous humor in them."  CinePassion  Fernando F. Croce

2.5/4
"...conventional but compellingly caustic...LaBute's excitable exposition is passable enough to sustain the manufactured intrigue and tension"  Movie Eye  Frank Ochieng

C+
"Flawed but intriguing thriller...while the movie is basically a potboiler, the brew that it keeps simmering is more potent than most."  One Guy's Opinion  Frank Swietek

1/5
"A nasty neighbor movie that fails to engage us."  Spirituality and Practice  Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

2/4
"It's too bad the movie's moderately intriguing qualities are buried under the final half-hour's avalanche of predictability."  ReelViews  James Berardinelli

2.5/5
"The film falls apart."  Q Network Film Desk  James Kendrick

3.5/4
"Simmering acceleration from the grey area of implication to the black and white reality of acute humiliation."  Palo Alto Weekly  Jeanne Aufmuth

5/10
"It's ironic when the tactics it uses to ratchet up the suspense actually reduces the very real tension that gets communicated in its first half."  Window to the Movies  Jeffrey Chen

"Unfortunately, the feud set in motion here trades on crude sterotypes that are still in play."  ReelTalk Movie Reviews  John P. McCarthy

"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."  UGO  Keith Uhlich

C-
"There's no real surprises, except for how clueless the characters are."  Film School Rejects  Kevin Carr

B-
"Director Neil Labute may be a hired hand on "Lakeview Terrace," but the film fits his oeuvre of men behaving badly"  Reeling Reviews  Laura Clifford

2/4
"This tediously predictable thriller about Los Angeles yuppies terrorized by their blue-collar neighbor is undone by its pretensions to seriousness."  TV Guide's Movie Guide  Maitland McDonagh

"Oh, to live to see such a rarity: a horror movie for grownups! No mad slashers... [j]ust the plausible pettiness of human nastiness slowly, inexorably building to a tragedy of suburban proportions."  Flick Filosopher  MaryAnn Johanson

3/4
"Aside from the weak final act, this is a movie about black and white that refreshingly focuses on the gray."  Aisle Seat  Mike McGranaghan

1.5/4
"Are we really supposed to stomach a thriller in which the root of all evil is intelligent black men in power who can't stomach, to the point of going full-on psychotic, the sight of a white man married to a black woman?"  Slant Magazine  Nick Schager

2.5/5
"This straightforward crazed-madman thriller is trying to pass itself off as an insightful look at racial tension, but it's simply not strong enough to pull off the trick."  Shadows on the Wall  Rich Cline

0/5
"This is as stupid, hollow, and irresponsible a movie as any I've seen, and I've seen Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS."  eFilmCritic.com  Rob Gonsalves

5/10
"Labute's reputation rests in large part on his penchant for provocation and his facility in inverting cliches, and both are on full display in Lakeview Terrace."  Playback:stl  Sarah Boslaugh

4/10
"It starts off with a promising jolt of menace but soon deteriorates into predictable, formulaic mayhem that's rooted in prejudice."  SSG Syndicate  Susan Granger

5/10
"A glossy "bad cop" thriller that achieves only a banal, surface-level recreation of Neil LaBute's old cage-rattling proclivities."  Antagony & Ecstasy  Tim Brayton

3/4
"LaBute's message has consistently been that no matter the privileges society affords, we're all just bad monkeys in the end."  Film Freak Central  Walter Chaw

"Click here to see review"  Wolf Entertainment Guide  William Wolf

2/4
"A house of cards only stands still if carefully placed, but with 'Lakeview Terrace', too many false and quick moves doomed it."  BlackFilm.com  Wilson Morales

Read review  NPR.org  Cynthia Fuchs
OFCS Rating: 29% Rotten
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