Dom Robinson reviews
Arlington Road
How well do you know your neighbour ?
Distributed by
Producers:
Peter Samuelson, Tom Gorai and Marc Samuelson
Screenplay:
Music:
(Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, TV: Twin Peaks)
Cast:
Michael Faraday: Jeff Bridges (Against All Odds, American Heart, The Big Lebowski, Blown Away, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, The Last Picture Show, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Vanishing (1993))
Oliver Lang: Tim Robbins (Bob Roberts, Erik the Viking, The Hudsucker Proxy, IQ, Jacob's Ladder, Nothing To Lose, Pret A Porter, The Player, The Shawshank Redemption, Short Cuts)
Cheryl Lang: Joan Cusack (Addams Family Values, The Allnighter, Grosse Pointe Blank, Mister Wrong, My Blue Heaven, Nine Months, Toys, Working Girl)
Brooke Wolfe: Hope Davis (The Daytrippers, Guy)
FBI Agent Whit Carver: Robert Gossett
Arlington Road
is the title of this psychological thriller and is the place where Michael
Faraday (Jeff Bridges) lives. Driving down it he sees a child bleeding
to death in the road and rushes him to hospital to find the boy is the son of
a couple across the road whom he barely knows, Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins)
and his wife Cheryl (Joan Cusack), but who seem to be like every other
normal couple in society.
Faraday is a college lecturer who gives classes about terrorism and associated
acts of violence and Bridges gives a good performance when detailing a
particular operation which resulted in the death of his FBI agent wife Leigh
when it all went badly wrong. He is now trying to rebuild his life with a new
love, Brooke (Hope Davis) and his son Grant (Spencer Clark).
Being the suspicious type though, after getting to know his new neighbours
better he begins to suspect Lang, an architect by apparent profession, is up to
something and the more he discovers, the more he starts to take an unhealthy
interest in Lang's actions and finds he's a terrorist who changed his name
and his past. Faraday's only friend who can help him is FBI Agent Whit Carver
(Robert Gossett), previously police partner to his late wife Leigh.
To give any more of the plot away would negate the point in watching the film,
but it's safe to say that it does have intriguing confrontation scenes and
the final twenty minutes of the film are very suspenseful, culminating with
a great twist in the tale which gives you plenty of food for thought and on
reflection makes some of the earlier, more mundane scenes take on a new
meaning.
The picture quality on this disc is almost perfect. While it's anamorphic and free of
artifacts, at times the image seems slightly stretched and it's not down to the geometry
of my TV so you occasionally get people with paunchy faces. Perhaps it's there throughout
the film but it doesn't show up all the time depending on what you're looking at.
The average bitrate is a high 7.50Mb/s, often peaking just over 9Mb/s and
the film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1.
The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 for both English and German languages.
The score builds tension throughout, particularly in the opening credits and the car chase
towards the finale. I have no complaints with the rest of it either.
Extras :
Chapters and Biographies :
18 chapters - the usual amount for Universal DVDs, from a company previously known as
Polygram, but a few more wouldn't go amiss. There is no theatrical trailer and no extras
to speak of on the disc itself, although there are cast biogs for all the principal
characters in the film within the booklet in English, German and Dutch.
Languages & Subtitles :
English and German in Dolby Digital 5.1 and subtitles in the same language for the deaf and hard of hearing,
plus German and Dutch.
Menu :
A static and silent menu, first offering menu language options before changing screen to
allow you to start the film, select a scene or audio and subtitle options.
Overall :
A very entertaining film as I've already described, but it falls short of the Region 1
DVD which also contains a fullscreen version if that's your bag, a director's commentary,
more chapters, making-of featurette and alternate ending.
FILM : ****
PICTURE QUALITY : ****
SOUND QUALITY : *****
EXTRAS : *
-------------------------------
OVERALL : ***½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.
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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
