Uno sconosciuto alla porta

Pacific Heights is required viewing in all Apartment Management courses in San Diego County. It is a chilling tale of decent but uneducated and unprepared new owners with a dream unknowingly up against a seasoned player in the professional renter game. This viewing requirement is one of the tools used to introduce starry-eyed management newcomers to the harsh and not-so-easily apparent world of the sick, the dangerous and the sue-happy portion of the rental market who will try to get the management stripped of all their personal assets and possessions, fired and possibly jailed, who work diligently to get the owner's property away from him/her, and who have no objection to going down as long as they can take others with them. Great movie.

Sometimes art imitates life and truth is stranger than fiction. I say that because last year four homeless women in Oakland, California squatted in a vacant house and refused to leave. They called themselves Moms4Housing and they made a mini-movement out of their theft. Instead of being summarily evicted from the house, the matter had to go to court. Their claim was that housing is a human right and since this home was vacant they had a right to it. The whole ordeal took about five months or so to be settled with the court ruling in favor of the company that owned the home. In this case, the owner of the home was a business that could afford to go to court and wasn't pressed for an immediate need of the house.

Which brings us to "Pacific Heights." A man by the name of Carson Hayes (Michael Keaton) simply moved into a vacant unit in a Victorian home in San Francisco without paying money and without permission. Due to the tenant-favoring laws, Drake (Matthew Modine) and Patty (Melanie Griffith) could not simply kick Carson out. They had to go through a lengthy and costly process to remove him which cost them all their savings and nearly their lives.

Carson wasn't a rent paying tenant whose rent just got jacked up by 50%, nor was he a rent paying tenant that was being evicted for some arbitrary reason, he was a slick con man that found a loophole in the system that protected his conniving con.

This was a tense movie in which you hoped to learn what Carson's motives were and what was his end game. The onion was peeled back a little, but I was never really satisfied with the explanation.

Michael Keaton was strong as the antagonist. This was back when he was crushing it on screen with movies like "BeetleJuice" and "Batman." Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith were weak castings. I must admit, I think Melanie is a weak casting in anything, but she was an especially weak casting in this movie.

The story itself and the pacing was good. I liked it as a suspense thriller, but whatever the intent of the writer was, I don't think the cities in the S.F. Bay Area heard him.

Prior to this film,we only saw Michael Keaton in comedic,and good guy roles.In Pacific Heights,he proves to us that he is not afraid to turn on us and be the bad guy.Keaton is excellent as Carter Hayes,the worst kind of no account,as he knows how to stay just out of reach of the law. The character is very similar to that of Max Cady in Cape Fear,though Cady is the far more memorable of the two.Carter Hayes is a nightmarish tenant wreaking havoc on the lives of his helpless landlords,wonderfully played by Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine.I consider this film to be an overlooked classic that never really got the attention it deserved,perhaps because no one wanted to see Keaton,particularly after his Batman success,as a villain.Those looking for a modern day "Hitchcock-esque" thriller will find a winner here.Thumbs up!

William Goldman says that the last 15 minutes are the most important of any movie and that's what saves what is otherwise a sometimes fascinating but often dull film in "Pacific Heights."

The plot line is fairly interesting but feels rather drawn out through most of the film, until the fantastic ending pulls out all the stops and turns the film into something good. The writing in general is a bit contrived and the dialogue fairly wooden, but it isn't quite enough to destroy the film even early.

The acting is very uneven, led by a terrible Melanie Griffith and a middling performance by Matthew Modine in terms of screen time, but certainly controlled by the fantastic performance of Michael Keaton, one of the world's greatest actors. Keaton is especially fantastic in the final sequence, from his charming act with the old woman to his harrowing, venemous final scene there is a complete change in who he is and it is all the more frightening and powerful for the juxtaposition.

Schlesinger's direction, besides Keaton's performance, is probably the saving grace of the film. He manages to inject a beautiful dark style to the film that the script rather lacks but seems to want while also keeping us in a blunt reality with the plain, simple outdoor shots. His use of lighting and well-chosen camera angles wonderfully play up the situation.

Overall, "Pacific Heights" is a middling film with a fantastic performance by Michael Keaton and good direction by John Schlesinger that turns into something better with its fantastic, surprising, venemously satisfying ending. If you watch it, though, don't give up on it 'til it's over.

Pacific Heights works because of Michael Keaton. Pacific Heights is an underrated movie and has Michael Keaton playing a sinister role as the tenant from hell. Melanie Griffith and Mathew Modine play a yuppie San Francisco couple who rent out their sublet to others. Unfortunately Michael Keaton- a rich but shady customer enters the fray and immediately convinces them to let him stay. It's a psychological thriller with a nice setting. I suggest you go in with an open mind.