Lakeview Terrace was exactly what any viewer could expect
from a Samuel L. Jackson film. While there were no highly publicized catch
phrases, Jackson‘s thriller was interesting,
simplistic, and allowed the Academy Award nominee to completely steal every
scene.

Lakeview Terrace starts the way most Jackson
thrillers do; a seemingly normal setting with Jackson
starring as a completely unusual character. In Lakeview Terrace Jackson plays Able Turner, a member of the LAPD
with a jaded past who becomes interested in his new neighbors, Patrick Wilson
of The Phantom of the Opera and Kerry
Washington of Save the Last Dance.

Without giving
away too many spoilers, any viewer can expect that Samuel L. Jackson played the
villain in Lakeview Terrace (one of
his more favored roles). But what was not expected was the complexity of the
character’s background and the deep moral issues that spiraled throughout the
film. The death of Turner’s wife (not shown in the movie) is the most pivotal
plot point of the entire film and sets the stage for Samuel L. Jackson’s
apparent psychosis. From bright backyard lights, to breaking and entering, to
slash tires, Samuel L. Jackson’s Able Turner proves that having a cop as a
next-door-neighbor may be the worse thing you ever dreamed of.

With
a driving plot, an acceptable cast of background characters, and Samuel L.
Jackson as the leading man, Lakeview
Terrace proved to be exactly what every Jackson
fan thought it would be. It might not be Snakes
on a Plane with strange required catch phrases and it might not be as
dynamic as Pulp Fiction, but Lakeview Terrace will surely become one of Samuel L. Jackson’s more noted
films and one to be seen by the action-loving-moviegoer for a long time.