ARLINGTON ROAD

 

THREE STARS – Thought-provoking

 

 

       The moral and logical inconsistencies of terrorist acts make “Arlington Road” an intriguing film. 

       Based on the actual bombing of Oklahoma City in which not only government employees were killed, but the lives of young preschoolers were also taken, the film takes us on a journey so close to real life that our souls sink into a morass that our minds cannot retrieve.

       Confronted with a fictional parallel in which the building bombed is the IRS in St. Louis, we are convincingly told that it is unlikely that one young troubled electrician could have done such a thing.  We are compelled by the arguments of Dr. Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges), a college professor specializing in terrorist acts.  He claims that the reason the government convicts one man, a Tim McVey or a Lee Harvey Oswald, is so that when that man is either dead or imprisoned, we can once more feel safe.  It is reasoned that the act was only the result of a troubled and isolated person.

       His point is that if there really is a terrorist organization that is covertly and effectively waging war on our government and could strike our hometown today, then our unease and panic will increase.

       But that is where the inconsistencies in both the real world and the fiction of “Arlington Road” collide.

       If the killing of government employees and the preschoolers within their buildings is the deliberate act of a terrorist group of Americans seeking greater freedom or self-government, then how will threatening the public safety bring more freedom?  Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that if someone declares war on the government, that the government will react by taking away freedoms and declaring martial law instead?  Won’t terrorist acts have the opposite effect from the goal they seek?

       And if the call to greater freedom comes from a place of moral conviction and religious belief, then what kind of person or religion can morally condone the killing of innocent people, let alone innocent children, in their liberation attempts?  Doesn’t such a means deny the very end they seek?

       If such questions were merely the creation of the writers of “Arlington Road,” we could dismiss the film as inane and hopelessly ridiculous.  But the questions come from life and their film only brings them into focus

       Although the intricacies of the plot are both its strength and its weakness, “Arlington Road” weaves a tale so compelling that it leaves us not only disturbed as we sit within the darkened theater, but also as we walk out into the light.  Part of its power is that the central character of the film is himself disturbed by both the government’s intrusions into our lives and by the terrorists’ attacks in response to them.

       Dr. Faraday is a widower due to his wife’s being killed in the line of duty as an FBI agent.  His son, Grant (Spencer Treat Clark), shares his empty attempts to go on with their lives.

       But as fate, or evil planning, would have it, right across the intersection of their upper middle class suburban neighborhood moves in a family with a young boy exactly Grant’s age named Brady Lang (Mason Gamble).

       We meet him in the opening scenes of the film as he explodes something that almost takes his life and Dr. Faraday has to rush him to the hospital to save him.  It is this act of heroism that begins a friendship between the families which is the center around which the film revolves.

       Grant and Brady become best friends.  Dr. Faraday and Brady’s father, Oliver (Tim Robbins), also begin a tenuous friendship, but from the beginning there is something that seems not quite right about it.

       Due to the nature of the film, we won’t spoil what happens next, but it is a disturbingly real plot.

       Although “Arlington Road” is a well-crafted film using its frames and lighting in inspired ways, it is the lectures Dr. Faraday gives his classes at the university which engage our minds and our fears.

       With pictures and statistics, logic and questions, Dr. Faraday asks his students to explore the nature of violence and the hearts of the people who practice and promote it.   The problem is that this learned professor has no answers, only questions and fears - fears which eventually are turned against him.

       “Arlington Road” puts before us an image of ourselves we would rather avoid seeing or considering.  But until we understand our own hearts and thoughts in relationship with violence, we will never find the answers our survival requires we find.  

      

 

 

(764 words)

 

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