Arlington Road

I saw this movie and was shocked, horrified, terrified (yeah, there is a difference), enraged, but maybe most of all saddened.  The basic plot premise is that a professor (Jeff Bridges) teaching a class about American terrorism and whose wife was killed in an FBI raid gone bad begins to suspect that his new neighbor (Tim Robbins) has some terrorist plans of his own up his sleeve.  As he learns more and more, he finds himself as well as his young son drawn into his worst nightmare.  Although it was an incredible movie in many ways, well written, edited, and acted, I'm hesitant to recommend it in general because it's just so creepy.  No, it's not slasher-movie scary, not the kind of fear that sends a brief chill down your spine and that you let go of a few minutes after the movie ends.  It's the kind of fear that seeps into you and will not leave, that keeps you up at night, that gives you bad dreams, that makes you think twice before trusting in anyone or anything.  Although the story is pure fiction, the truth behind those fabricated attacks is very real, too real.  There may not have been a federal building bombed in St. Louis, but I will never forget the bombing in Oklahoma City.  The obvious reason for the changed facts (the raid in which Michael Faraday's wife died is also similar to a real incident) is respect for those who suffered in real life, but the way in which the facts of the bombing were changed becomes horrifyingly crucial at the end.  I find it all too easy to believe that a real-life version of Oliver Lang exists, that groups such as his are growing in number, that these events could happen in the real Washington DC this very week, in this land where we are all free to hate as we please.  That is why I see this movie and, more than anything else, just feel sad.

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