William Fichtner and Michael Rosenbaum seem to make a great pair in the thriller The Neighborhood. Pitting a younger man and an older man in a movie such as this is something that’s been done before but still seems like a solid bet for a great movie. It’s not so much action-packed, at least it doesn’t look like it, as it is filled with drama and the lingering uncertainty of how to react in such a situation. A lot of older men, middle-aged to senior citizen, tend to look at young couples and get a bit wistful no matter if they’re still married or not. It’s a compulsion that doesn’t always go away with age.
But the idea of giving in to the compulsive behaviors that would drive you to get involved with a younger woman, especially if she’s married, are things that a lot of guys have learned to fight against by the time their Fichtner’s age. He definitely plays a creepy neighbor in this one, but that’s a part of his talent since really he is that great of an actor. Rosenbaum seems wired up so much of the time that toning it down feels like it would be impossible. He has that kind of energy that just won’t settle and won’t go away on its own when he’s onscreen, whereas Fichtner, even when he was younger, just seems way more laid back. Will can definitely get his blood up and prove to be a live wire but he can’t possibly match Rosenbaum, which is one of the reasons why this pairing is so great.
In any movie you kind of need opposites that can act independently of each other and yet still mesh when it’s needed in order to deliver a believable plot. If they were both full of energy and able to operate at such a high level continually then the movie might seem too frantic, too fast-paced, and not slow and methodical when Fichtner is the one in the driver’s seat. When Rosenbaum enters the scene the energy picks up, and the two styles tend to clash and war with one another but in doing so create a richer, more detailed story than they do on their own. That’s the essence of storytelling really, that you can find elements that don’t seem to go together at all and produce a link that can bring them together in a cohesive form that will make them greater. It’s kind of difficult from the start but once you find one great pairing finding another isn’t quite as hard since you know what to look for in terms of the basics.
The plot of this film looks so plain and basic from the outset that it might not be considered by many to be much of anything, but it does look very interesting to be honest. In many ways it looks like a drama that might unfold on TV, but with a great cast and a pace that suggests that it would be lost on the small screen.
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