LAKEVIEW TERRACE [PG-13]
review by Robert Newton

Sometimes critics lose sight of why regular people go to the movies — to be entertained. Not everything has to be enlightening, meaningful or artistic; sometimes, a good ol’ revenge drama like Lakeview Terrace will do the trick and prompt a satisfied, “That was pretty good” on the way to the parking lot.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Samuel L. Jackson as a veteran L.A. cop who is rather displeased with the fact that his new white neighbor (Patrick Wilson) has a black bride (Kerry Washington). His distaste goes beyond the snarky aside — he insinuates, threatens and takes extreme action to get his (incredibly photogenic) new neighbors out so that he and his two motherless children can exist in the influence-free world that he has created for them.

Director Neil Labute (”In The Company Of Men”), master of the icky, need-to-take-a-long-cleansing-hot-shower-after-watching school of filmmaking, creates a convincing scene in which his suburban pissing contest takes place. It is a sculpted, artificial serenity, into which we gradually feel that the feral will creep in through an unlocked backyard fence (the hillside neighborhood feels a bit like the one in Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist,” only with fewer corpses in the swimming pool).

If Jules Winnfield from “Pulp Fiction” had become a cop instead of a hired gun, he would be Abel Turner. He is educated, forceful and fearsome, and Jackson plays him with ease. The actor is no slouch, though you can’t help but be embarrassed for the guy when he continues to show up in groan-worth kiddie fare like the four “Star Wars” prequels; here, though — despite accessible turns by Wilson (”Little Children”) and Washington (”The Last King Of Scotland”) as the couple besieged — it is his show alone, as he proves for two hours straight why he will forever be an A-lister, and why we continue to happily fund his retirement, $10.00 at a time.•••

Robert Newton is the editor of WorcesterMovies.