I must’ve seen this movie at least five or six times. And yet each time I would watch it, I would almost instantly forget everything about it. I am yet to figure out why because despite the generic title, the story is very much memorable. One thing is for sure, I vividly remember watching it last night and I want to tell you all about it. And not just because it might slip from my memory in just a couple of days. Arlington Road is a compelling psychological thriller about a man who starts to suspect that his new neighbors might be up to no good. After the loss of his wife, Professor Michael Faraday has found it hard to connect with people.
However, he seems to have struck a chord with Oliver Lang, his next-door neighbor. And yet, he’ll soon start falling down a strange rabbit hole spurred on by a series of strange coincidences. Are Michael’s neighbors really terrorists or could he perhaps be onto something else? You’ll have to watch this intriguing movie driven by excellent performances to find out. In the lead roles, we have two greats, Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. Each of them gives a nuanced and pitch-perfect performance along with a pretty strong supporting cast. Arlington Road is not based on true events drawing inspiration from several domestic terrorist attacks and fears stemming from them.
I’m talking about the Ruby Ridge, the Waco siege, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Filmed just a couple of years after these horrific events, I admire the movie’s willingness to go places. Arlington Road is an authentically brutal and realistic movie about domestic terrorism and subsequent paranoia. It also marks the departure from the tried-and-tested formula of Irish terrorists used in so many nineties thrillers. I mean, just five years earlier Jeff Bridges was starring in Blown Away, another one of those “IRA movies”. Hell, this could be it, this could be the reason why I forgot all about this movie. All of them just blended into one generic thriller with a bomb.
This is a shame because, as I previously mentioned, Arlington Road is an intelligent and gripping movie that is definitely worth watching. Right from the opening scene, it’s going to take hold of you. I mean, the movie starts with a kid holding his burnt and mangled hand walking down the road. He’s soon found by our professor. And from that moment on, the suspense and mystery will just keep increasing. The finale was quite good and intelligent, something a lot of similar movies don’t quite hit in the right way. The suburban setting continues the eighties tradition of “ordinary family’s suburban nightmare movies”.
It does so by balancing the subversive, Lynchian approach (Blue Velvet) and exploitative, commercial approach (Stepfather, The Hand That Rocks Cradle). Its biggest quality is its unpredictability and tight storytelling. The amount of subplots is just right and they work in tandem with the main story to keep the suspense on throughout the two hours of runtime. Two hours of runtime that are just going to whizz by. Granted, once the thrill ride is over, you’ll be able to recognize a couple of minor plot holes. However, at that point, who the fuck cares? You’ve already had a good time and the manipulation wasn’t overt but subtle and smart.
Moreover, all of this is coming from someone who can rant for two pages about emotional manipulation or emotional milking as I like to call the process. So, just relax and take a stroll down Arlington Road, I’m sure you’re going to find it riveting.
Director: Mark Pellington
Writer: Ehren Kruger
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, Hope Davis, Robert Gossett, Mason Gamble, Spencer Treat Clark
Fun Facts: The photos shown during the slideshow for the fictional St. Louis, Federal Roosevelt Building incident are actually from the very real terrorist attack of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, 1996. However, the incident itself is extremely similar to the Oklahoma City bombing. Some people have pointed out the fact that Timothy McVeigh must’ve had some help to pull of such a horrific attack.
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IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137363/
