Release Date:
04/12/2002
Itd be really easy to just pin the weakness of Changing Lanes on Ben Affleck
so thats exactly what were going to do. Affleck, who could be cast as the less talented end of an over-hyped tandem of Academy Awardwinning screenwriter-actors and still not be believable, is just not a strong enough presence to carry his end of this already fairly weak morality play. Its just that Samuel L. Jackson is a good enough actor to dupe you (sometimes) into thinking that his characters actions arent all entirely baseless or implausible.
Changing Lanes tries to dramatize how one or two stupid judgment errors can send a couple of men into a downward spiral, but it leaves out little things like logic and real human behavior as it bends circumstances to suit its needs. Afflecks smarmy lawyer tries, at one moment, to wring sympathy out of you by showing how tortured he is over his firms corruption, but then he turns around the next moment and deliberately fucks with Jacksons children. While thats just one example (Lanes makes an admirable attempt to show how both men have their foibles), things like this leave the movie confused as to what its really trying to say. And the crescendo that events seem to be building up to never really comes. There are some decent ideas floating around here and a great bit part by Dylan Baker as a sleazeball for hire, but for the most part Changing Lanes will leave you as stranded as Jacksons character on the FDR.
Changing Lanes tries to dramatize how one or two stupid judgment errors can send a couple of men into a downward spiral, but it leaves out little things like logic and real human behavior as it bends circumstances to suit its needs. Afflecks smarmy lawyer tries, at one moment, to wring sympathy out of you by showing how tortured he is over his firms corruption, but then he turns around the next moment and deliberately fucks with Jacksons children. While thats just one example (Lanes makes an admirable attempt to show how both men have their foibles), things like this leave the movie confused as to what its really trying to say. And the crescendo that events seem to be building up to never really comes. There are some decent ideas floating around here and a great bit part by Dylan Baker as a sleazeball for hire, but for the most part Changing Lanes will leave you as stranded as Jacksons character on the FDR.