Neil LaBute directs Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington in this belated yuppies in peril thriller about a mixed race couple who move in next door to a bullying cop who objects to their very existence.

For the first 90 minutes this proves a gripping enough if unoriginal potboiler. Powered by a decent villian turn from Samuel L Jackson (the role suits him rather than stretches him) and a dark satirical take, it threatens to transcend its debt to 1992’s Unlawful Entry. Then in the last 20 minutes things unravel to the dampest ending imaginable. Hollywood fantasy yet awkwardly cliched. Shame, as there is a point where it looks like Jackson’s manipulative tyrant might actually get away with his abuse of the neighbours…  and they may end up misguidedly appreciating him. Surely, that would have proved a far more disturbing conclusion? We’ll never know. Beyond all the forced threat and unbelievable resolution, one does have to wonder how in need we were of a racist black man in authority antagonist to be the centrepiece of a mainstream studio release. We haven’t had nearly enough prejudiced white patrol cops lacerated and demonised in the same way yet.

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