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Rating:  -
Channging Lanes is one of few films that can start out great and then have a crappy enidng. After one leaves the film you still liked though.Roger Michell who previsouly directed Nottitng Hill does good with this little thriller and Ben Affleck & Samuel L. Jackson are good in the leads. The screenplay by first timer Chap Taylor is also very good however I do wish that the ending that was originally involved Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson getting into a fist fight that leads onto the balcony was used but hey the world ain't perfect.
Rating:  -
How Ben Affleck has ever gotten to be a 'star' in Hollywood is beyond me. I did like him as George Reeves in the Superman movie but for god sake... this guy is like a piece of notty pine. He is just plain horrible as an actor. He should stick to kissing Kevin Smiths butt and being in his stupid movies because he is a bad actor.
Samuel L. Jackson was funny at first. But his cussing and shouting gimmick has really gotten old.
This movie is predictable, simple and just a bore.
Rating:  -
A gem of a movie hiding there in the shelves. After seeing the movie I truly could not understand why this movie did not make a splash. I never even heard of it until I saw it at the rentals. The movie basically has Ben Affleck playing a hotshot lawyer who on his way to a very important court case has a small accident with Samuel L Jackson who was on his way to the court as well to appear for his child custody case. Ben offers a blank check to Samuel citing he has to be some place and thus does not have the time to check and share insurance information. When Samuel does not accept the blank check and says he wants to do this the right way, Ben leaves the scene leaving Sam stranded without a ride. Samuel cries out to Ben for a ride and not to leave him there stranded. Ben disregards this and is off. Back at the court, Ben realises when he is arguing the case, that he can't produce a very important document (a power of appointment) given by a deceased client of the firm which gave Ben's law firm the power to be trustees and caretaker of the money left behind by the deceased guy. He realises he must have dropped it at the accident site (which Sam has picked up as good samaritan despite the harsh treatment he was given by Ben Affleck). Sam, due to the accident delay and due to not getting a timely ride to the court reaches late and as a result looses his right to say his piece before the judge and looses custody of the children. Ben then tries to get the power of appointment from Samuel. Being enraged on Ben for stranding him and thereby making him loose his childeren's custody, he refuses to return the document that Ben needs. Ben then uses the services of a guy who does network hacking jobs and gets Samuel's credit turned off. Sam thus gets refused a loan which he needed desperately to buy a house with, to persuade his estranged wife to live with him so he can be close to the childeren. Samuel now gets further enraged and then makes it a mission to make life tough for Ben. Samuel tears up certain parts of power of appointment, threatens to destroy the book if the credit is not turned on. Ben tries to get it turned back but the hacker guy is not able to reverse it, Samuel is further enraged and sabotages Ben's car by loosening the wheels. Ben nearly gets killed. This draws a response from Ben. Ben then calls Samuel Saying his boys have been kidnapped while informing the School that an unstable man will try to run away with this childern. A Distraught Samuel goes to the School in concern for his children which is misread by the School as a father who is trying to kidnap his children. So right from the accident, it's a case of Ben and Sam one-upping each other and trying to view the other with harmful intent and each end up doing things that they would otherwise normally not do. It basically showcases the depths to which a normal noble law abiding logical person can sink to and how easily in a second he can chose to give up the very moral fibre by which he lived his life all along and how this can be brought about by a single seemingly unimportant incident which can have meaningful negative consequences for a person. This is a film about the fine line that we tread between leading our lives with the moral code or making an exception and sometimes doing the immoral thing. I believe each of us who see this movie can relate to this movie because no one can claim to be saint. We all in our past, be it small instances and incidences, have made some choices which we saw as right and just and correct in the heat of the moment but when the spite and anger over the situation passes we find ourselves questioning our very own actions which we thought were justifiable and correct beyond a shadow of doubt at an earlier point in time.
regards, Vikram
Rating:  -
Storyline: morally repugnant Wall Street lawyer gets into a contest of tit-for-tat with morally repugnant blue collar drunk. After repeatedly messing with each other they make up at the end and agree to be better men.
Actors: Samuel L. Jackson carries the movie. Ben Affleck proves once again that "Chasing Amy" was a fluke and that he really is [...]. William H. Macy shines in his role as a morally-neutral enabler. Sydney Pollack as the high-powered New York law partner acts just like a Hollywood writer thinks a high-powered New York lawyer would act.
Most interesting revelation: many conservatives believe that liberals take the positions they do on moral issues to salve their consciences, and not because of the issue's intrinsic moral worth. Changing Lanes confirms that hypothesis, turning death penalty appellate work into moral therapy. My, it must be so wonderful to be both rich *and* morally superior!
Rating: -
I was really impressed with the first thirty minutes or so of this film. The movie is set in a very specific time and place - a rainy Good Friday in contemporary Manhattan (sometime before 9-11 as we see the World Trade Center and the release date was early 2002). In a morning auto accident hotshot Wall Street lawyer "Gavin" played by a barely adequate Ben Affleck hits a car driven by recovering alcoholic insurance salesman "Doyle" excellently portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson. Both men are made late for court appearances and Affleck's character has inadvertently left an important legal file with Jackson causing repercussions that lead to escalating and improbable acts of revenge during the course of this spring Friday.
One of the problems with the film is Affleck is unbelievable as Gavin as he does not impart the intelligence or drive one would expect to see in a rising Wall Street attorney. One can never imagine him possessing the power and gravitas his father-in law (played by Sydney Pollock) commands as a senior partner. Both his soft spoken pretty wife (Amanda Peet) and his career girl mistress (Toni Collette) are much stronger and decisive. Furthermore Gavin's "ethics crisis" seems phony as we are supposed to believe an insider in a high power firm is suddenly opposed to white collar flimflam when he is not above some evil mischief against Doyle or cheating on his wife. Samuel L. Jackson is excellent as Doyle a man who has anger and alcohol problems but desperately wants to get back in the good graces of his divorcing wife and two sons. However he is so out of control (in one day we see him throw a computer through a bank window, beat up some characters he meets in a bar, attempt to kill Gavin by loosening his wheel and yell and scream at various other people) even when sober that it is difficult to believe he is functioning at all in life let alone on a job with some responsibility. The premise of the film is good but the script needs more believability to rise above the typical Hollywood offering.
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