Changing Lanes

Pros: good acting, great pacing, multi-layered story
Cons: maybe too close to what we've become as a society

As a society, we’ve become conditioned to making sure the other person “pays” especially when we feel we’ve been wronged. It’s become a part of our culture, especially in the media we view, that there must somehow be retribution ...

Pros: Samuel L. Jackson, some of the visuals
Cons: Plot

I’ve been noticing, more and more, as the technology of special effects becomes increasingly sophisticated, that opening credits are taking on a life of their own. Very seldom are they something to fast-forward through, lest something crucial is...

Pros: Story is Fabulous-Acting is Superb!
Cons: Ben did not invite me over to his house for a private showing.

Ben Affleck – Sweetheart you can knock into my car, offer me a blank check baby and I will take it. No problem. Such is the premise behind a new and complex movie that takes you on a psychological roller coaster of emotion. The name is Changing Lanes...

Pros: Jackson, Affleck, Colette, the directing, screen play
Cons: a cautionary tale-if you can handle that

Say what you will about movies that get up close and personal (and the fact that they aren’t often big box office) this movie is worth watching! I don’t know what I expected when I started watching it. I guarantee it was not this!

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Pros: It was a rental.
Cons: Story was not only too slow - but too bland.

Changing Lanes is a very lean movie. One guy, Galvin Banek/Ben Affleck is a rich lawyer who blows off a minor traffic accident but forgets a very important document at the scene and in the hands of… Two, troublesome guy, Doyle...

Pros: Samuel L Jackson's acting, beautiful intro scene
Cons: too contrived story and events, Ben Affleck

Changing Lanes seemed like an interesting dramatic movie at first but quickly wore on me. It's a movie about two people who met on the FDR by accident, literally. Ben Affleck plays Gavin Banek a young, ambitious lawyer working at a prestigious Wall...

Pros: Thinking person's movie. Good acting.
Cons: Unbelievable situations

Oh, did you have a fender bender on your way to court today? Where do you go from there? Write the other guy a blank check and be on your way? What if the other guy had something YOU wanted?

Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) and Doyle Gipson (Samuel...

Pros: Acting, dialogue, direction.
Cons: None, really.

Changing Lanes is one of those movies which should have "made it big" but simply wasn't action-packed or Academically motivated enough to do so. It was released in early 2002, which knocked it out of the Oscar race. While it did star Ben Affleck ...

Pros: Fine acting; stylish direction
Cons: There's no one to like; sometimes too stylish

For me to really enjoy a film (or TV show), I must be able to identify and like one of the main characters. It can be low budget (remember "A Boy And His Dog"?) or big budget ("Sleepless In Seattle," for example) but if I like one of the main characters,...

Pros: Perfect in every way. I think that's a meaningful "pro."
Cons: No due recognition from anyone.

One initially assumes, that although a movie could be quite boring and trite when romping through nothing but dialogue, history tells us that by a mere stroke of luck, the parties involved in the making of this movie just might have made a little bit of ...

Pros: Well-acted, compelling, thought-provoking.
Cons: A forced upbeat ending.

Any film bearing the tag line "One wrong turn deserves another" seems crying out to have that bit of ad copy flipped around in a review, but the gritty drama Changing Lanes doesn't entirely allow itself to such a glib put-down. While Roger...

Pros: Affleck and Jackson put up superb performances, compelling suspenseful story
Cons: Direction and ending takes a bit of cheese to it

One who throws the first punch is liable to end up learning the lesson but Changing Lanes from Roger Michell shows us that sometimes human apologues appear in more ways than one. The film by which seems misunderstood in it's title to be some sort...

Pros: An interesting idea
Cons: ..that becomes preachy and lost in a morality lecture from the director

Who the hell does Roger Michell think he is, to try and preach the necessity for morality and goodheartedness to me. Changing Lanes is his loosely disguised sermon on the effects of circumstance and chance, on who we are, and who we think we should be....

Pros: Complex, well-acted, nicely shot, well-edited
Cons: Problematic third act, including a morally heavy-handed and a weak ending

I guess Paramount had a bit of a challenge on their hands marketing Changing Lanes. Neither Ben Affleck nor Samuel Jackson have proven they can consistantly open films, especially not outside of the realm of action films. And since the actual plot deals ...

Pros: Decent acting, DVD bonus features
Cons: Unlikable characters, Repetitive plot

Have you ever watched a movie, then years later looked for your review of it, only to discover you never wrote one? Lately, I have been finding that happening more and more and it is not a search engine problem. So when I discovered I had never ...