Even your neighbours!
Is this the over arching message of this film and if so, is it really the kind of message we should be sending out to the world?
Some times a movie is just a movie. Not everything needs to be analyzed.
shareHave you ever seen the movie called the wicker man? If you've seen it than you can see that this movie is basically similiar to the wicker man. This movie sends the message that terrorism is human sacrifice. There are themes of sacrifice from the beginning and end of arlington road.
shareNow just hold on a minute. Aside from being fanatical terrorists, the Langs really weren't bad neighbors.
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTOshare
Fear Thy Neighbor was the tag line for this movie but I didn't take this movie as a 'trust no one' message.
To me its more of a don't believe the story you hear on the news or what the government tells you, like Jeff Bridges was sort of teaching in his class. You need to look into things deeper.
Unfortunately, a lot of people go way beyond a healthy skepticism and insist that our governments are ALWAYS lying. There really are quite a lot of normal, average, generally decent folks working for our governments, and in most situations they do their best and tell the truth. Questioning authority should not mean always rejecting authority, but some folks insist that everything is a conspiracy. More often than not, things are just what they seem. Both this movie and the 1970s film The Parallax View were fantasies.
I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTOshare
Its not just questioning authority but questioning the news that spreads the lies of the government or corporations and then most people believe that to be fact.
That's far from a fantasy that's the world we live in.
Um...this movie is about those ATTACKING the government. The lies in this film aren't by the government, they're by the anti-government forces.
shareThen it would be the lies reported by the media.
Jeff Bridges asks his class what made one bomber go from a normal guy to being erratic the week prior to his bombing of the government building.
That same thing happens to Bridges and the news report of the government's investigation is completely wrong.
Big surprise that the media can be manipulated. By either side.
shareAfter watching the special feature on the disk I had similar thoughts in response to the director's comments. He was talking about the isolation in gated suburban communities in the US, and I think his response was a negative one, but the message of the film seems to be if you break through that isolation and get to know your neighbors all hell breaks loose. The Bridges character would have been better off if he hadn't made an effort to get to know the Robbins character. Unintended irony.
shareevil-doers have to live next to someone. Recently Brussels has shown us that.
Rarely, with a few exceptions, do they live out in the boondocks in a farmhouse or bunker.
so yes, it is possible to live next to evil, the neighbors next door.
yes, christians are stupid
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