Behind the Scenes of Lakeview Terrace

Neil LaBute isn’t afraid of controversy, as anyone who’s seen his debut, In the Company of Men, can attest. His latest directorial effort, Lakeview Terrace, a contrived, derivative thriller that’s sadly devoid of thrills (in case you’re wondering, it’s a total “Skip it”) that centers on issues of race, marriage and the abuse of power; complex topics LaBute had to address while maintaining the film’s PG-13 rating.

“The MPAA is a tricky thing to work with,” LaBute offers, saying many of their requests would have significantly compromised the film he was trying to make. “It [was] a very interesting game. It became a weird shuffling of material and, along the way, interesting things happened,” LaBute explains, since the necessity to mold the film around a specific rating forced him to be more creative.

When asked about the larger issues the film confronts, he is unruffled.

“For as much as we talk about race in this country, we don’t have that many films about it,” LaBute contends.  “And the film is about it ostensibly because of who’s in it,” he says referring to Samuel L. Jackson as Abel, a hyper-controlling cop living next door to newlyweds Chris and Lisa, played by Kerry Washington and Patrick Wilson as an interracial couple Jackson disapproves of. “There are no scenes where we go ‘Hey man, let’s talk about race.’ It’s just there because of the nature of the dynamics. I think race is only part of it. You could still make the story work with another actor [of any race].”

As a director, LaBute was far more concerned with creating character believability. “We are complex people. I didn’t want [Jackson] to be just The Bad Guy. I wanted him to be a guy who kept making questionable choices and that could legitimately be made by anybody. But he wasn’t a bad cop or a bad father.”

The film’s star, Samuel L. Jackson, doing a weird amalgam of Denzel Washington in Training Day and the creepy neighbor in Disturbia, agrees. “I think [my character] has a definite point of view that he’s not afraid to express. He says what’s on his mind, he has a real opinion about how he wants to world to be and what he wants going on around him, in his neighborhood. He has a definite idea about how he wants to raise his kids, what he wants them to be influenced by. He’s not afraid to express that opinion and he is not afraid to do things to make the world his way. He has a moral compass. It just goes another way.”

Jackson also says he was grateful to be working with a director dedicated to creating a character with dimension. “It’s great having people who are really concerned about character and story,” Jackson says, “rather than a guy sitting there looking at the composition of the shot saying ‘How can we dazzle the people with the camera work?’ [Neil’s] a very bright guy and he’s open. My biggest concern with directors is that, when they get to work, they’re as prepared as I am because I have a plan of attack.”

For LaBute, an award-winning writer as well, being able to concentrate on directing was a welcome change.

“Since it’s not my original story, I could be more objective. I could immediately say ‘This is what I thought of the story, this is what I think is successful, this is what I think doesn’t work.’ It’s easier. It’s like looking at somebody else’s relationships. [You can say] ‘Oh this is what you need to do.’ In your own life, you screw everything up. Not being as emotionally involved, it makes you a freer.”

Though, he admits, “I tend to stick to the perspective of a writer. I’ve been doing that longer and I do come at things more literarily than immediately seeing things in pictures. I tend to see things in words. I haven’t charted a film career nearly as carefully as the plays I’ve written.”

Perhaps LaBute should be a bit more judicious the next time he steps behind a camera; Lakeview Terrace is a relentless, toneless drone that’s stacked with predictable, plodding plot points and flailing actors in dire need of corraling.