Pacific Heights (1990 John Schlesinger)

Daniel Pyne (one of Doc Hollywood's writers) gives us a couple who buy a house they can't afford, and saddles them with a serial asset-stripper for a tenant, who somehow moves in uninvited (he later enters their part of the house quite nonchalantly). Quite why he also infests the ground floor with cockroaches I'm not sure - let's just say this is to get the audience shifting awkwardly in their seats.

Matthew Modine keeps losing his temper over it all, and ends up on the wrong side of the police, leaving Melanie Griffiths (in unflattering jeans and trousers) to track down the rogue and turn the tables. The rogue, incidentally, is Michael Keaton - no relation of Diane - who's more charismatic than either of them. Also features Mako and Nobu McCarthy as the Japanese tenants, Laurie Metcalf, Carl Lumbly and Tippi Hedren, though she's not in any scenes with her daughter (that would have made them both laugh).

It all moves along very smoothly. Steven Ramirez edited Amir Mokri's images to Hans Zimmer's music.

The house isn't in Pacific Heights at all, but in the allegedly downmarket district of Potrero Hill.