Arlington Road MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +3 Content: -1

In this psychological thriller, Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges), a history teacher at George Washington University, has a neighbor that he suspects is not quite what he claims to be. The neighbor, Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins), tells Michael that he is an architect working on a shopping mall in a nearby suburb. But Michael gets suspicious of Oliver when he catches him in a few white lies. The problem is that no one takes Michaels suspicions seriously because his interest in history centers on revolutionary movements and conspiracies in American history. Everyone thinks he is just making it all up. As he begins to dig deeper though, he sees a whole lot more than he bargained for. But who is Oliver and what is he really up to? It may be that Michaels interest in conspiracies is not that far fetched. This film is extremely well written and acted, making for an exciting, edge of your seat theater ride. ARLINGTON ROAD may go down as one of the best suspense thrillers of the year.

This film garnered an R rating in spite of its relatively subdued content. ARLINGTON ROAD does include a couple of violent scenes, with some people being shot and some pictures of injuries sustained from a terrorist act. It also has the standard foul language, including 9 regular profanities, 4 s-words, and 3 f-words. On the other hand, quite a bit of talk revolves around the importance of God and family. One character expresses his feeling that when times are tough in life, the answer lies in holding on to your faith and your family. That character also acknowledges how much of life is out of our hands and mostly lies with God instead. The characters in the film also do a good job of addressing other important issues such as honesty and accountability in government, discussing where people get their values, and also talking about how people attain personal security. Although ARLINGTON ROAD is free of much of the objectionable content in R-rated films today and contains some good messages on important issues, its obscenities and profanities tragically degrade its acceptability.

Preview Reviewer: John Adair
Distributor: Polygram Filmed Entertainment, 9333 WilshireBlvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90210