Michael Faraday is a recently widowed college history professor living alone with his ten-year-old son Grant in the suburbs of Washington, DC. The death of Michael's wife Leah, an FBI agent killed in the line of duty, continues to haunt both father and son. Michael and Grant are soon befriended by the Hunts, a vivacious, All-American family new to the neighborhood. The parents, Oliver and Cheryl Hunt, go out of their way to draw Michael into their lives. Soon, Grant and young Brody Hunt become inseparable friends. The Conroys' long period of mourning seems finally to be over.

The Neighbors Oliver and Cheryl (Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack) As the two families become closer, Michael begins to have misgivings about the gregarious Oliver. After catching Oliver in a few insignificant lies, the more Michael learns about Oliver, the more his uneasiness grows. With Grant spending more and more time at the Hunts, Michael decides to check into the background of his neighbors.

What he discovers deepens the mystery, arousing suspicions that shake Michael to the core of his existence. The Hunts are definitely not who they claim to be; but who are they? Why have they come to Washington, DC?

Premise: Widowed when his FBI agent wife is killed by right-wing extremist terrorists, a college professor (Bridges) becomes increasingly obsessed with the culture and sub-society of these dangerous groups. The arrival of new neighbors (Robbins, Cusack), gives him new spirit, as they are gregarious and friendly, with two children (Gamble, Green) that his son (Clark) can be friends with. He is even beginning to see another woman (Davis).

However, he begins to suspect something is odd about the neighbors, something about the way they don't want him to see certain parts of the house, or a set of blueprints they have there. Are his neighbors terrorists... or is the stress of losing his wife merely driving him past the point of paranoia?

THERE is a thriller tradition. The best ones don't let you know what's going on until way, way late. True paranoia turns your head into a bucket of snails. Is that man acting strangely because he's up to something? Or is it just that you're having a bad day? Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges) teaches modern American history at George Washington University, specialising in US urban terrorism.

Greg's Thoughts: Paranoia is big, as the success of The X-Files is often attributed as demonstrating. Of course, paranoia has always been an alluring basis for taut thrillers. Alfred Hitchcock certainly knew this, and Oliver Stone has made it a trademark. It's the unknown, the pricking suspicion that the people you think you know, the facts you think you know, aren't really like that at all. It's from this concept that Arlington Road takes its first steps.

Bombing scares us all. With these acts of death, terrorists can destroy the lives of hundreds with a merciless randomness that can dwarf even the harshest acts of natural disaster. As always, man's greatest natural enemy is himself. In the years following the Oklahoma City disaster, the Unabomber, and the World Trade Center bombing, America's careful awareness of the threat of bombs is only growing.

There is something about the talents of both Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack that makes them ideal casting choices as the mysterious neighbors. The same youthful pliance that makes them seem friendly and engaging can be cast in a darker light, and they take on more threatening and spooky visages. It's that duality that makes us wonder about people, "Oh sure, they look nice in public... but what are they really like?" That neither Cusack or Robbins have really taken this kind of pseudo-villainous role before makes this movie special, as we get to see that other side.

As a college professor recovering from the loss of his wife, Jeff Bridges also seems like a fine choice. There's a carefulness and wondering air in his speech, something about his searching eyes that we can emphasize with as he tries to figure out what what's going on.

Where The Siege asks how far our government is willing to go in fear of terrorism, Arlington Road appears to ask how far we are willing to go.

His wife was killed in a botched FBI raid a year earlier. His nine-year-old son (excellent Spencer Treat Clark), is having problems with dad's blonde post-grad girlfriend (Hope Davis), who stays over too much. Nobody's happy. Change is not good. Michael becomes involved with their new neighbours across the road, after a freak accident. He's called Oliver (Tim Robbins) and she (Joan Cusack) has a name that is equally unmemorable. They have a boy a year older. Slowly, drip by drip, Michael becomes suspicious that Oliver is not the solid, dull, middle-class engineer he claims to be. Things happen, small things. He looks into them and discovers that Oliver is not Oliver at all. When he lived on a farm outside Kansas and had a different name, he tried to bomb a government building. He was 16. Every time Michael thinks he's found a connection with underground activity, it turns out to be innocent, to be nothing. His girlfriend thinks he's losing it. Even his late wife's FBI colleague wonders whether he needs a rest. Oliver is clean. He's a barbeque man, a suburban car cleaner, who's good with kids. Bridges is magnificent. He lets the paranoia grow inside him like a flowering bush. You begin to doubt Michael's fears. Perhaps, his dead wife, the nature of his work, problems with his son has affected his judgement. Robbins never puts a foot wrong. He is both spooky in his calmness and ordinary in his concern. Only at the end does credibility falter, but by that time you are on the edge of your seat and notice nothing but the sweat tickling your eyeball. As a thriller, it paces itself perfectly, always a heartbeat from panic, never noticeably mad. The Wolf