arlington road * 1/4 . directed by mark pellington . written by ehren kruger . photography , bobby bukowski . editing , conrad buff . production design , therese deprez . music , angelo badalamenti . producers , peter samuelson , tom gorai , marc samuelson . cast : jeff bridges ( michael faraday ) , tim robbins ( oliver lang ) , joan cusack ( cheryl lang ) , hope davis ( brooke wolfe ) , robert gossett ( fbi agent whit carver ) , mason gamble ( brady lang ) , spencer treat clark ( grant faraday ) , stanley anderson ( dr . archer scobee ) , et al . a screen gems release . 117 minutes . r ( violence ) the day after i saw this movie , i was reading in the new york times george vecsey's analysis of the us women's soccer team victory . ( vecsey is both a paragon of sports writers and an excellent author of non-sports books , including " loretta lynn , coal miner's daughter " the bestseller which became a great movie ) . i quote : " now the american women are hot , but , then again , america lives for temporary diversion and instant gratification -- new pop groups , new sunglasses , new cars , new internet stocks . " one might add to this many other items , including new movies , such as arlington road . the following day i received a tbs announcement for a made-for-cable film , first daughter , about the kidnapping of the president's daughter by american terrorists . as voltaire said about god , " if he didn't exist , he should have been invented . " hollywood , in the absence of that so-useful big bad soviet bear , predictably turned to world-wide terrorism , including home-grown american destroyers . as in arlington road , an ambitious but disappointing opus . at d . c . 's george washington university , professor faraday ( bridges ) teaches courses on terrorism . he's a widower with his boy , grant . his fbi-agent wife , was killed in a federal cock-up . faraday is being semi-consoled by brooke , one of his graduate students . he lives on arlington road where he makes friends with neighbors oliver ( robbins ) and cheryl lang ( cusack ) . then he begins to suspect that oliver is not the architect he claims to be , but a terrorist leader . . . the film open with the protracted , unexplained sequence . a heavily bloodied , badly burnt boy staggers down a street . just as you think that he'll fall down dead , he is rescued by michael faraday who drives him to a hospital . it's all done as a skillful " internal " montage , whose horror , however , does not really hide goofs and improbabilities . item : in a close-up , a drop of blood falls on one of the boy's sneakers . seconds later , the same sneaker has no blood . item : arlington road is a suburban street flanked by many houses and lawns but i cannot remember seeing any people around . it is far too convenient that the only driver who notices the kid's predicament is faraday . item : the child rapidly goes from apparent death throes to a lightning-fast recovery with one arm in a cast as the only visible sign . the explanation of the boy's condition , given by his parents , the langs , is a fireworks accident . all this is an artificial gimmick to have faraday and the langs meet and develop nice , neighborly relations . the couple has a boy , brady , and two girls . brady and grant become best friends . this is held in reserve for future , nefarious purposes . it is also is a gimmick for dis-alienating the orphan grant who disapproves of papa's girlfriend brooke , and for turning the 8-year old into a " regular american boy , " a fact that gets worked into the plot . another ho-hummer . michael faraday's questioning of oliver's kosher-ness as a designer of malls starts with his 2-seconds' glimpse of plans that are not of a mall but of an office building . quick eyes , what ? item : when later michael needs to look at those plans by getting into the lang house when the couple is not there , the two little girls who open the door are uncharacteristically pan-faced and suspicious ; michael's excuses for entering are woolly-minded , blatantly dumb . so is his search . item : brooke , rather thinking that michael's suspicions are paranoid , is an unbelievably obtuse naysayer . so is the fbi agent , a friend of michael's . cliche item : when a good person is feverishly phoning about a discovery from a pay-phone , and turns around , the enemy is standing there . improbable item : michael is checking old newspaper files about oliver . . . who suddenly appears behind him . cliche item : the obligatory as well as unbelievable car chase . impossible item : the way chasers and chased connect . goof item : a car is hit broadsides ; next that side is shown undamaged . [here i eliminate about dozens of other items]the finale is highly improbable but does score a point by going against the guesses of audiences conditioned by too many action good vs . evil flicks . i won't disclose it . the script of arlington road-- a name evoking red , white and blue patriotism-- wastes much money and technical talent during its two hours where nothing makes sense . its photography and editing are artsy not arty . story an dialogue go overboard with deviousness and indirection . has no one learned from alfred hitchcock the value of clarity ? . the whole is an alienating mess , and a probably uncalled for stress on large-scale , minutely organized , hugely financed ( but by whom ? ) american terrorism . the movie's events are under the sign of the world trade center and oklahoma city bombings , and the mess at ruby ridge . consciously or not , it connects with such good pictures as the invasion of the body snatchers , the stepford wives , seconds , rosemary's baby , et al . , that is , films where people are not what they seem to be . rescuing it from total destruction are good performances by bridges who is convincing in his pain and obsessions ; by robbins who is smooth and would be frightening if credible ; and by the clever casting of ever-charming joan cusack as a wolf in lamb's clothing . " le mauvais gout mene au crime " ( stendhal ) edwin jahiel's movie reviews are at <a href= " http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel " >http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel</a> 
