Arlington Road is a film that truly believes in something and stands by it. It goes out of it's way to shake the audience out of their complacency, by having Farraday (Bridges) address certain issues in seminars and then watching him live through the horror that he has only read about.
Rarely has a commercial American thriller been so intent on blaming its own villains for some of the injustices of terrorism. The convention (so imbedded that no-one but the occasional critic even questions it) that the biggest threat on American democracy and peace is from Middle Eastern terrorists is dispelled at once in Kruger's surprisingly powerful screenplay. The threat here is front the family next door. Mark Pellington's directorial debut cunningly balances this fear with the concept of fear itself; in a world of conspiracy theories and paranoia, might Farraday simply become a victim of his own obsession or does he truly have reason to suspect his new neighbour?
After a horrific and intensely claustrophobic opening, the credits sequence launches an assault on the senses like nothing since Fincher's "Se7en" (1996, dir. David Fincher, scr. Andrew Kevin Walker). Whilst the early stages of the film are relaxed and somewhat subdued, the themes are established early and the tension quietly built up in to true panic.
The closing chase does stretch credibility, but is justified by an extraordinarily sly twist which may be devastatingly cruel, but it is essential to the film's power. If it had opted for the ending which sees innocent man defeat deadly foe, it would have betrayed every principle it made in the first half. Instead it actually acts its theory and ensures that no-one forgets it in a hurry. I defy anyone, even on video, to walk away from Arlington Road without wondering whether they might also have been susceptible to the kind of lies and manipulation which it so brutally exposes.
Rarely has a commercial American thriller been so intent on blaming its own villains for some of the injustices of terrorism. The convention (so imbedded that no-one but the occasional critic even questions it) that the biggest threat on American democracy and peace is from Middle Eastern terrorists is dispelled at once in Kruger's surprisingly powerful screenplay. The threat here is front the family next door. Mark Pellington's directorial debut cunningly balances this fear with the concept of fear itself; in a world of conspiracy theories and paranoia, might Farraday simply become a victim of his own obsession or does he truly have reason to suspect his new neighbour?
After a horrific and intensely claustrophobic opening, the credits sequence launches an assault on the senses like nothing since Fincher's "Se7en" (1996, dir. David Fincher, scr. Andrew Kevin Walker). Whilst the early stages of the film are relaxed and somewhat subdued, the themes are established early and the tension quietly built up in to true panic.
The closing chase does stretch credibility, but is justified by an extraordinarily sly twist which may be devastatingly cruel, but it is essential to the film's power. If it had opted for the ending which sees innocent man defeat deadly foe, it would have betrayed every principle it made in the first half. Instead it actually acts its theory and ensures that no-one forgets it in a hurry. I defy anyone, even on video, to walk away from Arlington Road without wondering whether they might also have been susceptible to the kind of lies and manipulation which it so brutally exposes.