Arlington Road (1999)

Arlington Road is one of my favorite Jeff Bridges vehicles because he plays so well the professor-on-the-fringe coming unhinged. He's not as far gone as Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory but his take on reality is more visceral so his unraveling is more climactic. (Talk about overacting: I think you can see the snot running down from his nose.) What's really chilling to me though is Tim Robbins as his neighbor -- not just an innocuous Timothy McVeigh in white-bread suburbia but the leader of a domestic terrorist cell with his ice-veined wife Joan Cusack. Bridges' role may be a tad overdone but Roth's and Cusack's are chillingly understated. That -- and the movie's perverse final moments -- are what makes Arlington Road hard to put out of my mind and a movie I'm pleased to own. 4 stars.