Arlington Road

Year of release : 1999

Run time : 1h58m

Genre : Psychological Thriller / Mystery / Crime

Cast : Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins , Joan Cusack

The movie opens with a boy who can barely walk, in the middle of the road, while he is bleeding. Michael Faraday, who is driving home, sees him ,and takes him to the hospital. Later on, the parents show up too, and Michael finds out they are next door neighbors. They befriend, and start spending time together.

Michael receives by mistake a letter from a college for his neighbor, Oliver Lang. Going to his place, to give him the letter, he sees blueprints of a building Oliver says it's a mall he is working on, being an architect.

Just that, Michael says those blueprints didn't match a shopping mall, it was a building with offices.

Their kids are best friends now, spending time together, and they join a scouting troop together.

Michael keeps on telling his girlfriend what he keeps on finding out about the neighbors (Oliver changed his name right after his school mate died, taking his name, after he was arrested for terr0rism!) , but she doesn't believe him, until one day when she follows him, and realizes he switches a car with a woman,and drives to a delivery warehouse.

She calls Michael to tell him about it, but she is caught by Oliver's wife, and Michael finds out from the news she was in an accident, and died.

Just when he was about to let it go, he realizes he received phone calls his answering machine didn't take, and he is being under surveillance by his neighbors and their colleagues.

The irony is, Michael is teaching a class on American terr0rism! He realizes the man the whole country considers a terr0rist, was friends with Oliver, and before that, he was an outstanding guy!

I personally enjoyed the movie, it's well paced, it doesn't miss a beat. Michael starts as a man who has good connections, he is friends with a man who works for the FBI, as his wife was an FBI agent who died on a mission, 3 years prior , as they got wrong intel on a family.

The problem is, his friend in the FBI is incompetent in this movie, he doesn't believe him, and nothing is done, not just that, but SPOILERS we realize through what the terr0rists do to Michael, that this is what they did to other good people who discovered them, they set them up, portraying them as terr0rists, taking the fall for their actions for trying to save people!

 

Arlington Road is the name of the street they all live on.

The acting was great. Jeff Bridges was amazing! The way he portrays this man in the nick of time, scared, worried, trying to find his son and save people, just amazing! He deserves an Oscar for his interpretation.

The soundtrack was great, it matches what the character goes through, especially in the last part of the movie, it's like hearing his heart beat (you know when something bad happens and you can hear your heart drumming in your ears) drumming in his ears, they really translated that state of mind into music!

The movie received positive reviews, but only grossed a little over 41 million dollars, against a budget of 31 million.

Cinema Score audiences graded it a B-.

In April 2021 it was announced that a tv series based on the movie is in the works.

Rating : It's so money !