The film opens with the shocking scene of Mason Gamble staggering
along in the middle of the road, eyes rolling, with blood dripping on
his training shoes. The only sequence more shocking than the film's
disturbing opener is the last, a heart-pounding, brilliantly
constructed series of events that comes close to matching the
surprise and unconventionality of Psycho's famous shower scene. No
amount of cold hard currency will force me to reveal the film's
startling denouement, but if you don't leave the theater visibly
shaken then blood does not flow in your veins.

Sandwiched between these two cinematic highpoints is a taut, tense,
pulse-quickening film which raises the question "What do your
neighbors get up to behind closed doors?" and then goes on to answer
that question in truly terrifying style.

The film stars Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, and Joan Cusack and is
directed by Mark Pellington, who shows great promise with this, his
second feature. Bridges plays Michael Faraday, a history professor at
a District of Columbia university who teaches a class on terrorism.
After helping the injured son of some new neighbors from across the
street, Bridges begins to suspect the normal-looking Langs of
plotting a diabolical scheme involving explosive devices. Normal-
looking, that is, except for Robbins' severe haircut; just one look
at that do and you know he's guilty!

Faraday's paranoia builds to national security-threatening
proportions, much to the frustration of his girlfriend
(sympathetically played by Hope Davis), and leads to a confrontation
that thrusts his whole family into immediate danger.

Perhaps the scariest thing about the film is the justifiable fear of
a normal guy realizing how little he knows about the true characters
of his closest neighbors, what they might have hidden behind drapes,
buried in basements, or locked away in attics. One of Pellington's
trump cards is that he doesn't tip the audience off earlier than
necessary in determining who's the real crazy in this drama. And he
made wise casting choices in maintaining that suspense: Bridges is
brilliant, as is Robbins, and Cusack (in a rare straight role) has
hardly been better. In addition to the fine performances, Angelo
Badalamenti's creepy score helps crank up the tension several notches.