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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
It's easy to understand why Arlington Road sat on the studio shelf for nearly a year. No, the film isn't awful; rather, it's an extremely edgy and ultimately bleak thriller that offers no clear-cut heroes or villains. In other words, Hollywood had no idea how to sell it. Director Mark Pellington's underrated directorial debut, Going All the Way, suffered the same fate, essentially because the filmmaker's presentation of suburban America often shifts dramatically within the same film. Characters are usually miserable and bordering on meltdown, no situation is straightforward, and things usually end badly. Arlington Road begins as an astute study of suburban paranoia. Michael Faraday (a face-pinched Jeff Bridges, who spends most of the film on the brink of tears) is a college professor who teaches American history courses on terrorism. He's been a conspiracy freak since his wife, an FBI agent, was killed during a botched raid that feels like a thinly fictionalized reference to the Waco tragedy. After saving the life of his next-door neighbor's child, he initially befriends the family (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack), but soon believes the husband is a terrorist. The first half of the film mocks Faraday: he has no real evidence and is not the most stable of protagonists. Despite the fact that it was government paranoia that got his wife killed, Faraday repeats the same type of behavior. Pellington shifts gears in the second half, however, and for awhile, it seems that the film has simultaneously sunk into a cheap, high-octane brand of Hollywood entertainment and undermined its own point. Arlington Road, though, possesses a stunning ending that's a real gut punch, one that may leave you needing a second viewing to catch all of its smartly executed setup. --Dave McCoy
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Awful!
I can't tell you why without revealing a crucial plot twist; however, I can say that everything leading up to the climax suddenly depends on things just happening to work out right. The success of a very intricate plan suddenly becomes dependent on numerous chances that the writer & director must have thought made the plot event more clever. Wrong.
Rating: - An Unintentionally Good Film about the "Far-Right"
Everyone have seen "American History X", which "realistically" portrays what I imagine American screenwriters must think life is like for so-called "Extreme Right-wingers", but while that was a feast of Semitical Correctness gone wild, this particular film is actually quite good. The story centres around a college professor, Michael Faraday played by Jeff Bridges, teaching, among other things, a class on "domestic terrorism". Faraday has recently lost his FBI-wife in an incident involving one of ... Read More
Rating:  - Intense But Disappointing Movie
This movie keeps the tension fairly high throughout, but the final half-hour gets unrealistically wacky. Although the very surprising ending is dramatic and then.. well, you may find it terriboy unsatisfying. But, I think the whole movie was overdone. I think the actors acted like they were on steroids, especially Jeff Bridges. At the end, you see why they had him acting so hyper, but still, it wasn't realistic. Also, there was more than a whiff of political B.S. -- as you might expect from ... Read More
Rating:  - Sugar Coated Punch
Although I rented this movie a while back, I still rememeber most of
the "action". You see, there was once a song, and a line from that song
says, "paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep." Well, the
Jeff Bridges character (who teaches terrorism at the local college) starts
wondering about his neighbors. Tim Robbins just happens to be that neighbor. nuff said?
First half of movie drags, but it sets up the second half nicely.
Second half, keep an ... Read More
Rating: - You never see it coming!
this is a movie you never see coming. It is awesome and everyone should watch it!
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