Written by Daniel Pyne
Directed by John Schlesinger

For anyone who doubts that you can end up having a tenant who is a nightmare, I’m here to tell you it can easily happen.  Whether it’s playing on your sympathy for their life circumstances or jumping for a quick buck when you’re over your head in debt, sometimes people make choices that will come back to haunt them.  While on the surface it may be easy to want to scream at them and say they only have themselves to blame, reality makes it much more complicated.

Pacific Heights is a thriller Directed by John Schlesinger.  Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine are Patty and Drake, a young couple looking to buy their first home.  They get in a bit over their head with the idea that they will be able to rent out the lower-floor apartments. Michael Keaton is Carter Hayes, who rents an apartment from them. Viewers were introduced to him at the beginning of the film as he was getting the tar beaten out of him for some unknown reason, but it would appear to have something to do with whom he was sleeping with at the time.

Carter has lots of cash that sways Drake who is worried about the finances.  However, once he’s in he seems to set out to make their lives a living hell.  No more rent is forthcoming, either.  Drake and Patty learn the hard way that once Carter became a tenant in their home, he essentially had more rights in the home than they did.  The other renters, a niche Asian couple, complain as well and soon the place is infested with roaches.  There’s a tinge of racism involved as well as the Detective who works their case happens to have been one of the prospective tenants they interviewed and rejected.

Schlesinger seems to like movies where good citizens find the law working against them.  I found Pacific Heights to be very much in the tone of Eye For an Eye, another film of his.  He creates suspense by having the bad guys use the system to their advantage while the audience wonders how the good guys have to suffer before justice finally prevails.

The acting here is good. Modine and Griffith seem to have a decent chemistry and although I liked Modine much better, Griffith was still strong.  Modine is a typical male, reacting to the strings Carter is pulling and although I knew what was likely going to happen, it still created an air of suspense, kind of like watching the train going down the tracks toward the car that just got stuck.  Griffith handles herself fine, although I’ve never liked her stilted style which always makes me feel like she’s trying too hard to pull a role off.  It’s a bit muted here but still just as frustrating at times.

The real praise here goes to Keaton who is fantastic as the villain, a professional criminal who is out to take advantage of the good nature of his victims as well as the system.  He pulls off the likable guy easily enough but also the dastardly, calculating criminal who plays them perfectly, particularly Drake.  People generally want to believe people are inherently good, and he’s one of those who takes advantage of that.

The problem is the movie sort of builds up to a finish it can’t pay off on.  The ending is predictable for most thrillers and pretty much what I expected to happen. (Oh do I wish I could have done that!)  There’s some satisfaction as to the final outcome, but it felt like writer Daniel Pyne wrote himself into a corner he couldn’t get out of so he took the easy way.  Still, this is a pretty decent thriller with great acting that’s worth your time to view.  You’ll never want to be a landlord after you see it!