Truly Dreadful Film

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Better Late Then Never

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Wow, what an opening! And what an amazing, smart, edge of your seat ending! I really enjoyed the classroom teachings of Faraday, especially the ideas that I call the politics of fear. It's interesting that this movie came out in 1999, but seems very relevant even today. Also gives me pause to think about the phrase "he acted alone". I also enjoyed having Bridges and Robbins in the same movie, as I like both of those actors. Robbins is creepy, but I think Joan Cusack out-creeps him, and her facial expression change at the pay phone is probably gonna wig me out for a while! It's a slow film, but the ending makes it worth the view!

The film keeps you on the edge of your seat through most of the film. You develop a deep hatred for the antagonist (Tim Robbins) and are hoping and expecting to see the protagonist (Jeff Bridges) get revenge and foil the evil plan. But the moment you were waiting for never happens. The end credits role and you are left feeling still angry at the bad guy because he comes out on top. It was definitely unexpected and a clever little twist, but I wanted so bad for him to get caught and exposed. So many movies now end with the bad guys winning in the end, yeah it's not realistic to always have a happy ending but in this case Tim Robbins character is so diabolical you just want to see him pay. I would have given it 8 stars if it ended the other way but I knocked it 1 because the way it ended. A great ending is one of the hardest things to come up with. Too often has a movie got you by the throat, lost deep in the plot, forgetting about the outside world, only to let you down at the end. It's not a bad ending or a stupid ending, just leaves you without justice being done

"Arlington Road" is a thriller about a college professor (Jeff Bridges as Michael Faraday) who teaches about historic acts of terrorism, and his neighbor (Tim Robbins as Oliver Lang), a smiley, smarmy type who has an equally oily wife (Joan Cusack as Cheryl Lang).Though they live across the street from each other, they never know each other until an unfortunate accident. From the moment they meet, Michael senses something is amiss. Certain facts about his neighbor don't seem to add up. Michael is a naturally inquisitive guy--perhaps a little prone to conspiracy theories--so he takes his own suspicions with a grain of salt.The opinions about "Arlington Road" on this site range from "classic thriller" to "less than average". This is not Hitchcock or "Jaws" or "Alien", but the tension lies beneath the surface and I found the film to be riveting. I do think some viewers will be disappointed with the ending, but it rings true. Bridges is intense and Robbins is laid back, making for a nice contrast. The director, Mark Pellington, uses some nice camera angles to convey Faraday's unbalanced perspective when his life suddenly takes a dramatic turn. But this is no classic; there are too many superior suspense films.Its strength lies in its stars--especially Bridges--whose performances are only slightly undermined by a script that could use more depth. When the conspiracy theory becomes a truly fearful story element, the action develops and resolves too quickly (unlike, say, "North By North West").

I can admit it: Arlington Road is a movie that can build up suspense and have you on the edge of your seat. It's not simplistic or predictable, it's not a sweet story with an obligatory happy ending. It has everything to be a great thriller.But, like the Nolan brothers taught us in 2006, in a trick, it's not enough to just make something disappear, you have to bring it back, and the way you do it is what defines your skill as a magician. The same rules apply to the magic of cinema, that is, all the suspense that you have built has to unwind at the end, so that you finally see all the pieces of the puzzle turn into a whole picture. And that's exactly where Arlington Road cheats the audience big time.Feeling suspicious over something, trying to convince other people that there's fishy stuff going on and being driven insane by their disbelief, only to find yourself the culprit framed for exactly the thing you were trying to uncover. I guess some tropes just never get old. However, easy as it is to employ, it's also based on some low blow that you hope the audience will somehow get over for the sake of their own entertainment's integrity.Well, i don't feel like getting over being cheated this time. Because the only way Arlington Road could have pulled off its trick is by making its protagonist a complete idiot, who's literally going insane over the things that happen in his life and inside his head, while everyone close to him are completely blind and refusing to believe anything that goes beyond their sweet and dandy image of the world around them until it's simply too late. Lack of communication between people, a total absence of common sense and logical thinking, behavior driven not even by the emotions but by some primordial instincts instead - which all mysteriously leads our poor hero to the only place he was prescribed to arrive to, as if he was a bullet shot from a high-accuracy weapon to hit a bull's eye from miles away. I simply refuse to buy it.The point Arlington Road tries to drive home over and over again is that a rogue power can outtrick the system and hurt it, while the system itself would be denying its vulnerability and intentionally shutting off the inconvenient truth, going for a scapegoat instead. And maybe it's actually possible, but only if you are wickedly smart and leave nothing to chance indeed. However, the shine of Arlington Road's magic relies on your own will to play dumb and be fooled. And if you simply allow yourself to keep your eyes open and look where it really matters instead of where the trickster wants you to, you'll see that there is no real magic here, just some dusty mirrors and strings hanging from the ceiling. And, unfortunately, the guy pulling them simply couldn't do it artfully enough to make this contraption look natural.