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"Lakeview Terrace" is a much better movie when Samuel L. Jackson is onscreen than when he is off.

Fortunately, Jackson is in the film more often than not, commanding the screen with a powerhouse performance that gets under the skin and starts to burrow. He absolutely makes the film; with a lesser actor it would just be schlock.

Jackson stars as Abel Turner, a tough policeman who, we are given to understand, has not been the same since his wife died three years ago. He has become a strict disciplinarian to his kids, is set in his ways and at some point he broke his moral compass. He is also an old-school racist, so old school he disapproves of what he probably thinks of as miscegenation.

All the worse luck for the mixed-race couple that moves in next door (the street, incidentally, is Lakeview Circle. Maybe the neighborhood is supposed to be Lakeview Terrace. At any rate, there is no lake to be viewed anywhere).

Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington, as Chris and Lisa, move into what must be an awfully expensive starter home. The racial realities of their marriage raise Abel's ire, although they also enrage him by christening their swimming pool in full view of his inquisitive children.

Actually, Abel kind of has a point about that.

Jackson does the menacing charm thing exceptionally well in this film, harassing and threatening his new neighbors without actually doing anything they can take action against. But as his campaign against them inevitably escalates, he crosses the line into illegality firmly and irreparably.

It is during the scenes of deniable harassment that Jackson and the movie shine. The scenes of domestic tranquility between Chris and Lisa, however, are lethargic, lifeless, inert and ultimately pointless. Will they decide to start a family? Who cares? Lisa complains that she hates her job and we don't even know what she does.

It isn't the fault of Wilson and Washington; they simply are not given anything interesting to say. Director Neil LaBute generally specializes in nasty stories about nasty people, so maybe he is out of his element with a script about normal people.

And maybe that is why he turns Chris into such a jerk. But we can't give Chris our full sympathy if we don't like him.

There is only room for one villain in "Lakeview Terrace," and the role is handled so admirably by Jackson. He is so compulsively watchable that we almost forget to pay attention to the story.

Like, um, at the movie's end, who calls all those cops?