An excellent story about a dirty cop for a neighbor and Patrick Wilson's character not being able to do much about it. Great that it's not the type to contrive racist things all over it instead it's more subtle. I love how the movie gets away with 2 f bombs! Lakeview Terrace is under appreciated and highly entertaining in my opinion; deserves more credit!

A very well made psycho-thriller that stands at the top of a sub-genre kick-started by Adrian Lyne's FATAL ATTRACTION in 1987. LAKEVIEW TERRACE features Samuel L. Jackson in riveting form as the main antagonist, a character who's not only the neighbour-from-hell but a cop-from-hell too (imagine this guy on the beat with Ray Liotta's character from UNLAWFUL ENTRY!). LAKEVIEW TERRACE sidesteps cliché throughout – arguably until the climax, anyway – and delivers plenty of suspense and thrills in its story of a racist-with-a-twist – this time it's Jackson who's the racist, a guy who hates whites.

Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington are somewhat bland modern actors, but the quality of the scripts drives them to give fairly good turns here. The film belongs to Jackson in the end, though, and he keeps us watching through thick and thin. Realism is often swept aside in these types of production (I'm thinking of you, PACIFIC HEIGHTS) but not so here. Neil LaBute has made some awful films (in fact his one before this was the dire Nicolas Cage remake THE WICKER MAN) but Lakeview Terrace is an unexpected delight – a high-calibre piece of professional filmmaking that never disappoints.

Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson) is a tough aggressive LAPD officer living with his two kids with lots of rules. Chris Mattson (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa (Kerry Washington) move in next door. Abel isn't happy with the couple, and tension rises.

Director Neil LaBute is supposedly putting together a little treatise on racial politics. But it's really just a way to a cheap thriller. The problem is nobody is likable. Nobody is compelling. It's the annoying neighborhood spate that everybody rolls their eyes at while desperately trying to avoid. That's what I feel when I watch this. I like to avoid this if at all possible.