Allegories about sacrificed morality in a world shaded gray play well with audiences. Court room dramas, police procedurals and other formulas all offer protagonists with fading ethics in face of huge salaries and payoffs – but everything is tinged with a formal air. Either events happen in uniforms or court rooms, but either way the feature never delves to deep into the faults of true humanity. Changing Lanes focuses on a lawyer but forgoes the legal plot in favor of two men dipping below the law in favor of a more primitive solution. The entire scenario breathes fresh life into the common morality tale with its raw take on the pits of human rage – but the road it takes to get there leans too heavily on serendipitous chance.
Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) just made partner in the law firm of his father-in-law (Sydney Pollack). Unfortunately, it seems he earned his rank by duping an aged man into signing away $3 million dollars from a philanthropic organization. On his way to a court date to prove his firm has the required signature, Gavin has a collision with Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) who’s on his way to a custody hearing. Leaving the scene of the accident in a rush, Gavin leaves Doyle stranded with a glib “better luck next time” and one of the key papers for his case. When he realizes mid-trial what he’s lost, he tries to track down Doyle. Doyle meanwhile, arrives 20 minutes late to his hearing to find it complete and settled in favor of his wife, who plans on moving to Oregon with their two children.
And so the fun begins. With Gavin desperate to retrieve his file so he can close the court case for good and Doyle irate over the perceived loss of his children to the beautiful state of Oregon, the two men’s lives erupt in a feud over their personal injustices. The attacks range from general harassment to total financial ruination of the other. Adding to the stress of each situation are familial pressures (Amanda Peet as Gavin’s amoral wife) and alcoholism (William Hurt as Doyle’s AA sponsor). Even if each man only had his inner demons to deal with on that fateful day, the day would still have amounted to their own personal hell.
Changing Lanes is really all about the characters. A lesser critic would make a joke about choosing Ben Affleck to play the lead in a character-driven film – but not here. In fact, Changing Lanes isn’t the worse for wear due to the performances (not entirely); the problems arise from overly-convenient plot devices arising just so the plot can work. For example, just as Doyle begins to calm his nerves he receives a voice message from Banek prompting him to abandon his newfound common sense in favor of the rage that plagues his character for the rest of the film. Or, Gavin discovers that Doyle’s “reconciliatory” intents aren’t all they’re cracked up to be just as the effects of Doyle’s sabotage efforts go into effect. Such small factors are typically negligible in face of a film’s enjoyment, but in the case of Changing Lanes there are just far too many of them to ignore.
The transfer to Blu-ray doesn’t offer too noticeable of a change in visual clarity, nor for the audio. But unto itself, the presentation is a solid entertainment outing. Samuel L. Jackson in high-definition – has entertainment ever known such excellence?
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Paramount has been learning from its latest round of DVD-to-Blu-ray transfers and finally decided to add a few extras to the equation. The extras aren’t all that incredible, but compared to the nothing Paramount has offered in the past, this is a good start. For Changing Lanes, we have the general theatrical trailers, extended/deleted scenes and audio commentary with the director Roger Michell – and then we have two production featurettes. The first could just as easily be gleaned from the audio commentary while the second is a paltry explanation of the characters and their motivations. Again, it’s something but it’s nothing too revealing or deep.
"Changing Lanes" is on sale May 19, 2009 and is rated R. Drama. Directed by Roger Michell. Written by Chap Taylor. Starring Amanda Peet, Ben Affleck, Richard Jenkins, Samuel L Jackson, Sydney Pollack, Toni Collette, William Hurt.
