Changing Lanes

After feeling genuine hatred for the two lead characters, more so for Banek (Affleck) than Gipson (Jackson), I found that the ending wrapped up too quickly, too conveniently and too smoothly, and while it was reasonably watchable the first time, I probably wouldn't want to see it a second time.

Both Affleck and Jackson play their parts convincingly, and make it almost believable that a fender bender could lead to such chaos. In the real world however, Banek should have wised up to his work situation from the beginning, and Gipson would have certainly fallen off the wagon. Personally, I could never be charitable to a man who purposely sets out to destroy my family's chance for happiness, or lies about my kids safety, which makes the somewhat neat ending leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The bankruptcy story thread was unconvincing. The highly paid professional just accepting his failure with a shrug off is just not realistic. There are other parts of the movie where the lead characters cause significant damage to office property without repercussions, and some of the support actors tenuously cling to the storyline like afterthoughts.

Considering that this movie is about greed, arrogance, despair, revenge, deceit and blackmail, it does very well to maintain a reasonable entertainment value. The "positive message" comes too late to be of significant redeeming value.

Jackson's performance carries the movie as far as it can go.


"You're addicted to chaos."   June 24, 2004
cookieman108 (Inside the jar...)
'One Wrong Turn Deserves Another", that's the tagline for the film Changing Lanes (2002), starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson, directed by Roger Michell, someone I've never heard of before here, but I found out he also directed the Julia Roberts film Notting Hill (1999), which I have yet to see, mostly because Julia Roberts kinda scares me with those big horse teeth of hers.

As the film begins, we sort of meet two individuals, a fancy schmanzy lawyer named Gavin Banek (Affleck) and a telephone insurance salesman Doyle Gipson (Jackson). The two men, while both on their way to court, Banek involved in a case worth a lot of money to the law firm he's a partner in, and Gipson involved in a custody hearing with his divorced wife, get into a car accident with each other. Gipson wants to handle the situation in the correct manner, but Banek, who caused the accident, has little time to deal with the formalities, tries to deal with the matter expeditiously, pawning off a blank check on Gipson, leaving not only the scene of the accident, but leaving Gipson stranded as his car is totaled. In his haste, Banek accidentally leaves an important document with Gipson, one that could potentially cost his firm over 100 million dollars and even prison time for Banek. As a result of the accident and being stranded by Banek, Gipson misses his appearance, and the court rules against him, allowing for his ex-wife to move away with their two sons. Banek, in the meantime, is allowed until the end of the day to produce the lost document, and later discovers Gipson still has possession of it, but is disgruntled over the treatment he received from Banek and losing his custody hearing, setting up a cycle of revenge between the two men, each sort of 'one upping' each other to increasingly dangerous and life-altering levels.

First of all, I just had a hard time buying Affleck as a partner in a big law firm, despite the fact that his father-in-law, played wonderfully by Sidney Pollack, is also a partner. I think he's a decent actor, a bit over-rated, and he's certainly got the smarmy quality down, inherent in many of his roles, but I didn't feel like he had the level of intelligence required to hold the position he does...and are all lawyers smarmy, greedy, opportunistic liars looking to rip people off? Maybe...I don't know, but this movie would have you believe so...Jackson is pretty good, but he's pretty much playing a role I've seen numerous times before from him, the angry, loud black man who yells a lot. It's toned down a little here, but not much. In the film, we find his wife left him because of his problem with alcohol and his addiction to rage. Throughout the film, she would seem on the verge of possibly reconciling with him, but then would quickly change her mind. This happened three or fours times, and given the film takes place over the course of one day, I could see where Jackson's character might react the way he does, given that she has such a penchant for flip flopping. One of the things I disliked about this film was each time one of the main characters would initiate some form of revenge on the other, they would suffer from moralistic pangs, which would soon pass as the cycle continued. And honestly, there weren't really any likeable characters in this film, despite any attempts of redemption by the characters within the story. Banek is a self-serving lawyer, one whose professional dealings seem awful shady (he struggles with this throughout most of the movie, as we are supposed to believe his conscious is now bothering him, despite his previous actions). Oh yeah, he's also an adulterer...and Jackson's character, a recovering alcoholic telephone insurance salesman with confrontation issues, one who his AA sponsor (played by William Hurt) say is 'addicted to chaos'. We do see him desperately trying to put the pieces of his life back together and develop a relationship with his two young sons, but I always got the feeling like his attempts were always too little, too late. I did like the performances by Pollack and Hurt, even though they got so little screen time and it seemed like their characters were a bit contrived as plot devices, both seemingly only present to serve as external forces for good, with Hurt and Jackson, and bad, with Pollack and Affleck, to put it simply. Toni Collette makes an appearance or two, as a colleague of Affleck at his law firm, but her character is almost a non-character, offering little more than a foil for Banek to bounce off of as he deals with his conscience. And I have to say, while I think she's normally an attractive woman, she did not look good here, with here bleached out hair. I was expecting a much different direction at the end, as the film reminded me slightly of the 1993 Michael Douglas film Falling Down, in that events continuously build on each other leading to an inevitable conclusion, but here, things wrapped up just a bit too convenient for my tastes, especially given the self destructive nature of the characters and events that transpired.

The wide screen anamorphic picture here looks wonderful, and there are a few special features available including a really worthwhile commentary track by the director, a 15 minute 'Making of' featurette, deleted and extended scenes (only about three total and not really offering much more to the story), a five minute 'A Writer's Perspective' featurette, and a theatrical trailer for the film. The product page here mentions alternative endings, but I didn't see those listed in the special features of the disc. By the way, if you ever get into a one upping contest with Samuel L. Jackson, check your car's lug nuts regularly.

Cookieman108


Don't drive in New York!!!   June 22, 2004
S. M. Anderson (Lithia Springs, GA)
20 minutes of lost time causes Doyle Gibson to lose a custody battle with his exwife. The lost time was caused by Banek cutting off Gibson on the FDR (I'm a former NY'er and I've had this happen to me!!!) Doyle wants to do the right thing and exchange information, while Banek just wants to give him a blank check and be gone. Banek is in such a rush he does not realize that he lost a file for the court case he is on his way to. To get back at Banek Doyle holds the important file hostage!!! This starts a series of events that just sets of a domino effect of I'm going to do you worse!!! Closing accounts, threatening phone calls, and possibly worse!!

The movie is about morals, and doing the right thing. The movie was not great, but it held my interest.