Arlington Road (1999) * * *

 

Directed by: Mark Pellington    

Starring:  Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Hope Davis, Joan Cusack, Mason Gamble

Arlington Road was made four years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing with much of the same paranoia and unease intact from the public response to that terrorist act.  This is a thriller with some plot holes, but it still works on its intended level and it has some degree of courage to go where it must and not necessarily end happily with the hero saving the day.

The protagonist of Arlington Road is George Washington University professor Michael Faraday (Bridges), who lost his FBI agent wife in a botched raid many years ago.   His classes focus on terrorist activity and the theory that recent bombings were not the work of one man as the media purports and the official stories suggest.   Michael believes blaming one person for these attacks is a quick and digestible psychological fix for the American public to make it easier to move on.  "It gives us our security back," he tells his class.  Michael soon meets his new neighbors Oliver and Cheryl Lang (Robbins and Cusack), who are friendly enough, but Michael begins to notice strange things about them and suspects they are not who they seem.   

It turns out Oliver has a hidden past and may or may not be Oliver Lang.  This leads to a dangerous cat and mouse game in which Michael tries to figure out what the Langs are plotting before they can execute their plan to blow up a federal building.  Michael still has friends at the FBI, who think Michael may be paranoid.   If they didn't, then Michael would have no excuse to slink around trying to find evidence of a plot.   Bridges pulls this off earnestly, while Robbins has one of those smiles which suggests he not only may be up to something but can't wait to tell the world about it.   In this case, it may be part of his plan.  

Yes, Arlington Road doesn't always hold up under scrutiny.  Indeed, the Langs' plot leaves a lot up to chance in order to be pulled off, and the ending requires standard car chases and crashes, but up until then, Arlington Road carries a certain degree of suspense and dread which allows it to be successful.