THRILLER OFFERS GOOD ACTING, TOO.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

``Arlington Road'' is one of those movies that is done a disservice by its preview trailer. That's because the less you know about this taut thriller, the better off you are. Unfortunately, the film's advertising campaign seems determined to give away most of the movie's surprises, reducing its essence to a rote roller-coaster ride.

That's too bad, because ``Arlington Road'' offers its audience pleasures that go beyond most brainless summer fare. It's smart, nerve-racking and features fine performances from a couple of underappreciated masters of acting, Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. In a summer full of snickers, this movie provides an edge-of-your-seat alternative.

Director Mark Pellington (known mostly for music video work) establishes an intense, apprehensive tone immediately during the opening credits sequence. We see a young boy, blood dripping on his Converse sneakers, staggering down the center of a residential neighborhood street outside Washington, D.C. (Angelo Badalamenti's haunting music adds to the disorienting effect.)

Driving home, history professor Michael Faraday (Bridges) comes across the horrific sight and speeds the boy to the hospital emergency room. It turns out the child, Brady (Mason Gamble), is the oldest son of Oliver and Cheryl Lang (Robbins and Joan Cusack), Faraday's congenial neighbors from across the street. Brady had been playing with fireworks and had one explode in his hand.

``Two months they've lived there, and I haven't said one word to them,'' Faraday tells his girlfriend, Brooke (Hope Davis), full of the kind of guilt and remorse that anyone living in a detached, suburban climate can understand.

The accident brings the neighbors together. Faraday's son, Grant (Spencer Treat Clark), becomes close to Brady, and the Langs invite Michael and Brooke over for a dinner party.

But Faraday begins to notice some contradictions in Oliver's stories. Oliver says he's never lived in the East before, but Michael sees an alumni letter from the University of Pennsylvania. Oliver claims to design shopping malls, but his blueprints seem to be of office buildings.

Faraday, though, could easily be suffering from paranoid delusions. He's a widower; his FBI agent wife was killed by militant extremists during a botched raid. He also teaches a class in American terrorism at George Washington University and spends his time debunking the government's ``official'' anti-conspiracy explanations. He's still bitter about his wife's death, a tragedy he believes could have been easily avoided.

Thus, a cat-and-mouse game between Faraday and Lang is established and director Pellington, working from an edgy script from first-time screenwriter Ehren Kruger, has the perfect actors working in those roles. Robbins, with his little boy's face and cryptic grin, plays the enigmatic Lang as a Fred Rogers (the cardigan sweaters are a nice touch) with militia leanings. (He's always sweetly telling Faraday that ``someone should pay'' for his wife's shooting.)

As for Bridges, his natural weariness and wounded ease have rarely been used to better effect. We watch Faraday become consumed with finding the truth about Lang, and, in the process, begin to resemble the sort of loose cannon that he teaches his students (and his little boy) to fear. It's another wonderfully textured turn from Bridges, who has made a career at delivering this kind of understated performance.

(Added bonus: Cusack's spooky work as a housewife straight out of ``Pleasantville.'')

``Arlington Road'' isn't perfect. The film occasionally veers back and forth in tone, breaking its hypnotic mood with a jokey line that would have been more at home in another sort of movie. (``The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,'' for instance.) The last act, at times, resorts to genre cliches to move the plot. For the most part, though, Pellington has managed to effectively evoke the sickening vulnerability that many Americans now feel after incidents like those in Littleton and Oklahoma City.

There's one scene, a conversation between Faraday and Lang in Faraday's back yard, that neatly encapsulates the encroaching claustrophobia prevalent in America's suburban sprawl. The two men warily talk, inches from the other's face and surrounded on all sides by the looming presence of their neighbors' homes, dwellings that seem to be stacked on top of each other. With such suffocating proximity, is there any way Faraday couldn't let his suspicions get the better of him?

The film's shattering conclusion provides the answer to that question with the brutal force of a kick in the gut. ``Arlington Road'' may not be the studios' feel-good movie of the summer, but you probably won't see a more powerfully disturbing movie about America during this traditionally silly season.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Arlington Road'' (R; intense violence and some language).

The stars: Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack and Hope Davis.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Mark Pellington. Screenplay by Ehren Kruger. Released by Screen Gems.

Running time: One hour, 57 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Three stars.