Changing Lanes

The movie does an excellent job of identifying the main characters and setting out their motivations for wanting to be in court on time . Their subsequent collision on the expressway as both are preoccupied with their respective priorities is both very abrupt and very realistic. This scenario is one that anyone of us could find ourselves in at any time. I found myself wondering what I would do in that situation.

What happens next would depend on the individuals involved and given the volatile nature of these individuals , it seems inevitable that one or both will blame the other for their problems that result from the collision and seek to strike back at the other to get revenge. This may sound immature and childish, but it is also frighteningly believable.

Most people may be very calm and rational most of the time, but when they believe that they have been provoked or wronged by another, reason and passion fly out the window and are replaced by anger, rage and throughts of revenge. Events quickly spiral out of control. Changing Lanes was very entertaining and very unpredictable in its depiction of the lengths that both characters go to in order to strike back at the other. Ben Affleck and Samuel Jackson give first rate performances.

Spoilers.

Changing Lanes is much more complex than the trailer leads you to believe. From the preview, you'd think it is an action fan's over-revved, simple-minded revenge thriller with lots of vehicular mayhem. Believe it or not, it does more peeling back of the layers of insulation of the affluent/powerful end of the social spectrum than any film I have seen lately. (--And not in the way the disappointingly too-pat-to-downright-absurd 'John Q' did, either.)

It's a film noir, and one of the darkest at that, full of despair, cynicism and scathing revelations about human nature. It seems to say-- or really, and this is a major distinction, to be about characters some of whom believe-- that we all make deals of personal expedience with Morality, that no one escapes life formation uncompromised and therefore able to comment on or judge anyone else's choices or actions. It's the old amoral, nihilistic/relativistic universe routine, which says concepts of fairness, justice or morality are quaintly irrelevant, that stuff just keeps happening, always has and always will, que sera sera.

My favorite scene, which was revolting and ugly and creepy as anything in any horror film you can name, is when Affleck sits down in a fine restaurant to discuss with his wife the morality of the situation he has been sucked into and is getting in deeper by the hour. He recognizes rightly that his game of oneupmanship, and win-at-any-cost has gotten insanely out of control. He is beginning to question it all, everything in his life. He comes to his wife for solace, direction, insight, a hint of moral rectitude, any help she can offer. She helps him, alright-- by saying she knows he does dishonest things (like having an affair with a woman at the office, which up until she springs that, he thought was his little secret) and that she could have had an honest husband, if that was all she wanted. --Why would she make a scene over an infidelity and risk interrupting the flow of her resources, anyway, she asks. He splits the dinner, dazed and even more desperate. In the next scene we witness him doing more of those very things he has just been having moral anguish over. (Maybe he can't recognize the feel of moral anguish at first.)

The Affleck character has a tremendous amount at stake, courtesy a pretty nifty plot hook, that keeps him up to some very dirty tricks. Sure, he doesn't want to risk interrupting the flow of his resources, either. But I think it's clear that the real reason he keeps doing crummy things is because he is a man compulsively drawn to the rewards of a destructive mode of behavior. Others gamble or drink or eat too much. Affleck works the system, lying, cheating, and treating all people like garbage. That's his high, his inescapable need. He can't quit. (Late in the film, he agrees to hire an idealistic young intern because, he laughs uncontrollably to himself, he wants to see what the intern's optimism and altruism looks like after 5 years of hard weathering by his no-rules-in-life employer.) Affleck is sick, and while he finally recognizes that sickness, he resigns himself to keep doing the same thing because, as his boss tells himself, he is willing to believe he has done more good than harm at the end of the day. The Affleck character's motivations for being extra bad, in the episode of his life we glimpse here, are strong enough to keep Changing Lanes from being just another American psycho study; it's easy to believe we could turn Affleck, given a similar circumstance in our life.

The ending is a somewhat forced positive one, but not nearly as much a sell out as is usually the case with a made-by-committee major commercial film. I give the whole enterprise 8.5 out of 10 stars.

I imagined this was going to be one film from the previews I'd seen, but in reality it turned out to be another - a far more subtle experience than I had expected. A lot of the people in the packed theatre where I saw it apparently expected that other film too; they seemed disappointed when they'd left - they'd probably been expecting yer basic escalating violence, with us cheering for Jackson as the good guy and Affleck as the bad. Not a black and white movie (no pun intended), more of a karma sort of thing, with the two main characters learning from each other in ways they never realized they would (or needed to). And heavy-handedness is nowhere to be seen. Kudos for that alone.

There is a lot great about this movie. Plausible plot, strong acting, alpha on alpha everyday Joes (vs superheroes or thugs or spys). The movie mostly avoids stereotypes, arguably completely avoids them because these are well drawn characters. Great, believable psychological thriller.

High real world stakes.

Until the last ten d*** minutes when Afleck becomes essentially a super hero and fixes all the consequences for Jackson, despite how clear it was made throughout that most of these things could not be fixed.

Such an intelligent story ruined by one of the most careless yet brazen Hollywood endings in history.

I know *why* they make Hollywood endings, but I strongly suspect anyone that sat through this disturbing tale could handle a real ending. This ending is tantamount to all the dead people in Alien or one of the Hannibal Lecter movies all being AOK at the end.

This movie was surprisingly good, but fans of car chase sequences and the like will be extremely disappointed. The acting and directing is expertly carried out, with special praise to Ben Affleck as Gavin Banek. Changing Lanes actually explores more depth into the main characters, and how their lives will change, either for better or worse, rather than just dealing with pure and simple 'road rage'.

Samuel L. Jackson was well appointed as Doyle Gipson, and portrays his part well. One character's next move to destroy the other makes compelling viewing, and we can actually feel some sympathy for them, as we see both their emotional and compassionate side.

The story flows well as we are drawn into Banek and Gipson's desire to cause pain and hurt, not giving any thought to others who maybe affected by what they are doing. Changing Lanes is not a violent film as such, it simply explores the aspects of revenge in what could be a true-to-life measure. This is what makes it an entertaining and gripping movie that proved a winner for myself, and should do for many other film fans.