Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

There are plenty of films about feuding neighbors. They play on our deeply-held feelings about home ownership (a man's castle) and the claustrophobic aspects of being surrounded by an evil that can't be appeased."Lakeview Terrace" adds elements of racism to the mix and ratchets up the dramatic suspense. Samuel L. Jackson is Abel Turner, a city cop who harbors hatred of interracial relationships for unknown reasons. His passive-aggressive dislike of his next door neighbors--Chris Mattson (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington)--blossoms into full-fledged overt hostility as the story unfolds.Officer Turner, and his fellow cops, routinely violate the rules, making the film a statement about police abuse of power, as well.About halfway through, however, the storyline includes some elements that feel false (i.e. untrue to the nature of the characters). Because of this, the film suffers, losing any moral focus.The acting is good across the board. It's too bad that the performances are betrayed by a script that loses a consistent vision. In the end, as a result, the film points its finger at a few social issues, but fails to deliver a convincing resolution of the issues or the dramatic tensions.

Lakeview Terrace (2008) does have some pretty solid acting performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, and Patrick Wilson. They all really carry the film and do a great job doing so. The premise is very interesting and intriguing, which is what interested me in it in the 1st place. The tension between characters is great and very real seeming. There are times towards the middle part of the film where it can seem too slow, but it does speed up a good bit towards the end. The violence isn't over the top bloody or graphic, it's well done. The movie has thrilling/suspenseful scenes that will definitely rev up your adrenaline and elevates the movie. But if you ask me, the thing that carries this film, is the actor's performances all throughout it. Great job to the cast! Because to be honest, if the performances here weren't good, this would've gotten a much lower rating than a 7/10.

Lakeview Terrace is such a relentlessly dull nothing of a movie that I was actually grateful for the censor's inevitable snipping of bad words, blood, and Kerry Washington barfing. Anything to shorten the dreary predictability.I was annoyed at how Samuel L. Jackson just phoned in his performance. Here is a man who, like a small number of actors and actresses in movie history, can command the viewer's attention by doing something as mundane as advertising a credit card, and he turns up more mendacious than menacing. Jackson should never be boring, but here, he does just enough to get a paycheck. Patrick Wilson and Washington are so unappealing that I could not care what happened to them, all before the melodramatic comeuppance of Jackson's violent, controlling LAPD patrolman. Ugh. Even free ugh is still ugh.

The movie opens so very slowly despite the normal speed of its entire pace. The story didn't really build that well for the first half part of its duration. I didn't even quite get what the movie was aiming to promote as its main theme or conflict until about half an hour into it. Then it all make sense although it's still unclear about the background and reasoning behind the behavior of the Able Turner character.At least it gets better, although in a weird sense. It's because Turner suddenly tells everything and spills out all the missing details, in a bar chat. Samuel L. Jackson acted out nicely in portraying the hostile cop, despite the lack of clarity from the screenplay's part. Patrick Wilson did just okay in balancing for the movie.