Arlington Road

• Cat.no: 058 917 2
• Cert: 15
• Running time: 113 minutes
• Year: 1998
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
• Chapters: 18 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Languages: English, German
• Subtitles: English, German, Dutch
• Widescreen: 2.35:1
• 16:9-enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £17.99
• Extras : Scene index, Biographies

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Director:

Mark Pellington

(Going All the Way)

Producers:

Screenplay:

Music:

(Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, TV: Twin Peaks)

Cast:

Michael Faraday: Jeff Bridges (Against All Odds, American Heart, The Big Lebowski, Blown Away, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, The Last Picture Show, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Vanishing (1993))
Oliver Lang: Tim Robbins (Bob Roberts, Erik the Viking, The Hudsucker Proxy, IQ, Jacob’s Ladder, Nothing To Lose, Pret A Porter, The Player, The Shawshank Redemption, Short Cuts)
Cheryl Lang: Joan Cusack (Addams Family Values, The Allnighter, Grosse Pointe Blank, Mister Wrong, My Blue Heaven, Nine Months, Toys, Working Girl)
Brooke Wolfe: Hope Davis (The Daytrippers, Guy)
FBI Agent Whit Carver: Robert Gossett

Arlington Roadis the title of this psychological thriller and is the place where MichaelFaraday (Jeff Bridges) lives. Driving down it he sees a child bleedingto death in the road and rushes him to hospital to find the boy is the son ofa couple across the road whom he barely knows, Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins)and his wife Cheryl (Joan Cusack), but who seem to be like every othernormal couple in society.

Faraday is a college lecturer who gives classes about terrorism and associatedacts of violence and Bridges gives a good performance when detailing aparticular operation which resulted in the death of his FBI agent wife Leighwhen it all went badly wrong. He is now trying to rebuild his life with a newlove, Brooke (Hope Davis) and his son Grant (Spencer Clark).

Being the suspicious type though, after getting to know his new neighboursbetter he begins to suspect Lang, an architect by apparent profession, is up tosomething and the more he discovers, the more he starts to take an unhealthyinterest in Lang’s actions and finds he’s a terrorist who changed his nameand his past. Faraday’s only friend who can help him is FBI Agent Whit Carver(Robert Gossett), previously police partner to his late wife Leigh.

To give any more of the plot away would negate the point in watching the film,but it’s safe to say that it does have intriguing confrontation scenes andthe final twenty minutes of the film are very suspenseful, culminating witha great twist in the tale which gives you plenty of food for thought and onreflection makes some of the earlier, more mundane scenes take on a newmeaning.

The picture quality on this disc is almost perfect. While it’s anamorphic and free ofartifacts, at times the image seems slightly stretched and it’s not down to the geometryof my TV so you occasionally get people with paunchy faces. Perhaps it’s there throughoutthe film but it doesn’t show up all the time depending on what you’re looking at.

The average bitrate is a high 7.50Mb/s, often peaking just over 9Mb/s andthe film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1.

The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 for both English and German languages.The score builds tension throughout, particularly in the opening credits and the car chasetowards the finale. I have no complaints with the rest of it either.