Since "The X-Files" has raised the level of paranoia-awareness among the general public to heights which involve aliens and monsters, can a film that deals with something as pedestrian as domestic terrorism be at all involving and groundbreaking? More importantly, would anyone want to see something like this - even if it were well-made - at any time, let alone at the height of summer, where intelligence-impaired entertainment tends to fare best?

Happily, "Arlington Road" is the anti-summer movie. Gutsy, smart and a few notches far above pandering, Mark Pellington - whose last film was the unpromising coming-of-age tale, "Going All the Way" - has managed to turn a one-note story into something gripping and thought-provoking. Collaborating with popular actor-activist types Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins, and effectively exploiting the talents of the often underused Joan Cusack, his film is a moral conundrum and cautionary tale disguised as a heart-stopping thriller.

Michael Faraday (Bridges) is a college professor who specializes in terrorism in American history. A widower who lost his wife, an FBI agent, during a government anti-terrorist operation gone wrong, he dotes on his son Grant and tentatively begins a relationship with Brooke (Hope Davis), his ex-teaching assistant. Into his surburban neighborhood of Arlington Road arrives a new family led by Oliver and Cheryl Lang (Robbins and Cusack) who seem like the most wholesome couple on the face of the earth - people with a ready smile and who call each other "neighbor" casually. After rescuing the Lang's son Brady from a freak accident, Michael becomes drawn into their family as Grant begins to bond with Brady - it looks like the two families are on their way to surburban bliss. Gradually, Michael begins to notice disturbing details in Oliver's picture perfect sheen - how, first of all, his name isn't Oliver at all, and how all those architectural drawings framed in his house seem to be hiding floorplans of federal buildings. Is Michael losing his mind, as Brooke and others around him insist? Or are Oliver and Cheryl the most dangerous people to ever walk along Arlington Road?

Building coincidence upon coincidence, the script by Ehren Kruger stretches plausibility on more than one occasion, but these excursions are handled so adroitly by the actors and director that they never seem outlandish nor impossible. Most impressively, Kruger has manufactured a film that consistently piles on the tension and unleashes a final twist in the plot which is schematically dazzling and courageous, and will leave audiences breathless.

Director Pellington should also be credited for taking the material and fashioning it into one of the most chilling, tautly wound thrillers of recent memory. Steadily accelerating to a relentless pace, he puts his talented cast through a series of increasingly difficult acting choices in order to sustain the momentum and energy of his film. The always reliable Bridges again scores with a harrowing portrait of a man slowly coming undone as his sanity and family are tested to breaking point. There's a certain sense of paranoid mania in his performance which causes the audience to doubt his character's assertions and investigations - this is a skilfully nuanced performance that doesn't aim for audience sympathy, but instead challenges audience perceptions and invites them to draw their own conclusions even as the plot hurtles along toward its inevitable conclusion. Matching Bridges all the way is Robbins, who again uses his deceptively wholesome appearance to make the most of his character's escalatingly questionable actions. Hope Davis is effectively given a handful of scenes to play the doubting Thomas of the piece - it's a thankless role which she tries her best to enliven. Joan Cusack - so interesting a performer - gets to bring her special blend of creepiness to the role of the too-good-to-be-true Cheryl Lang; most of the film's scariest moments involve her smiling benignly.

Overall, "Arlington Road" may be one of the most thoughtful and interesting films to be released this year. Quite apart from the controversy surrounding the film's content, it stands as solid conversation fodder, and offers audiences a chance to escape from the mindlessness that always descends during summer. Any film that gives Jeff Bridges a role worthy of his talents must be commended, and this one goes further in offering notable turns by the entire cast, and proves to be a surprisingly good sophomore effort for director Mark Pellington. Highly recommended.

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© Copyright 1999. If you've got anything to add, write me at terrybrogan@hotmail.com. Or don't. Whatever.