(1999)
2.5
Derek Armstrong
Another in Jeff Bridges' expanding oeuvre of "defusing bombs with wide-eyed panic" movies (see 1994's Blown Away), Arlington Road is notable as one of the first commercial films to channel the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that rocked the sense of security of small-town America. Tim Robbins inhabits the Timothy McVeigh role, seeming like a harmless family man to everyone who meets him except his neighbor, played by Bridges, who teaches a college seminar on terrorism and is bedeviled by conspiracy theories. The film sets a wonderfully eerie tone, opening with a boy staggering down a suburban street, dripping a faint trail of blood. The music gets frenzied as the film reveals that his hand has been mangled beyond recognition by a bundle of detonated fireworks, and that he'll probably die if his kindly neighbor (Bridges) doesn't rush him to the emergency room. It's an ominous comment on the side effects of having a mad bomber for a dad. But the film doesn't sustain this level of insight, proceeding instead for way too long as a color-by-numbers thriller that relies too heavily on happenstance and chance meetings. By the time the script redeems itself, the viewer has already been lulled into a false sense of its conventionality. Arlington Road is arresting at the very beginning and at the very end, but viewers must endure a lengthy gap in between.
Arlington Road on AllMovie
Arlington Road (1999)
