ARLINGTON ROAD |
| Mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble…. Yes, it’s that time of
year again when the film companies can’t be bothered to release anything worth seeing
and I can’t be bothered to go and check out the dross that fills the cinemas. What
with that and the blight about to be created by the Phantom Menace, when no-one will dare
release anything for months either side of it, I expect to have a poor year of cinema
going. Anyway, it looked like Arlington Road offered the best opportunity to be at least watchable though I was somewhat baffled by Warrior Mouse and Cheshire Cat extolling the virtues of Tim Robbins as an actor, as I could barely remember who he was and now I’ve seen him again his face is fading rapidly from my memory. So Tim Robbins was OK though he wasn’t called upon to do much in this film. Jeff Bridges was very good, so much so that I began to worry he is suffering from alcoholism or some other deadly disease. He reminded me of Wilfred Lawson who you were never quite sure would make it to the end of the next line before falling flat on his face. Assuming Bridges wasn’t pissed or ill then, he gives a spiffing performance as the politics lecturer whose FBI wife was killed in a bungled operations and who discovers he is living next to a terrorist even though no-one will believe him. As a man on the edge of falling apart, dealing with past grief and the grief that is thrust upon him during the course of the film, he turns in a truly magnificent performance. I never knew he had it in him. Joan Cusack must also be mentioned for her excellent and chilling performance, much more chilling than Tim, remind me what he looks like again, Robbins. Whoever played Bridges young girlfriend was entirely forgettable so I hope for her sake that that is what the script intended. It is a good film with a twist I did not guess and entirely worth your money. Minor gripes were the unnecessarily loud and long opening scenes and one coincidence too far which happens in a parking lot. I couldn’t read too much into this film in terms of political comment although many other critics have. I read it as a very competent piece of Hitchcockiana and as such it works brilliantly. Lizard’s rating **** |