Changing Lanes (2002)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Better Late Then Never

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Changing Lanes has high aspirations. Can a single film both reveal the profound corruption of top-level corporate lawyers, and give us hope that the members of this secret "club" retain post-induction the ability to change their ways? The story presents a series of mistakes made by the two primary protagonists, played by Ben Affleck and Samuel Jackson, over the course of a day. More happens in that single day than happens in an entire year of most people's lives! So, yes, the plot is fast paced. I did not find the acting poor, as some reviewers have complained. I actually found that it was pretty good, not only the Affleck and Jackson roles, but also the portrayal of the father-in-law by Sydney Pollack. But the Ben Affleck character was just too pure to be true! After marrying into his super-wealthy father-in-law's firm, he then seems to believe that he can transform the whole corrupt machine into a shining pillar of altruism! I hate to be this cynical, but I must say that if any real corporate lawyer attempted what the Affleck character claims that he will do at the end of the film, he would be found dead in the not-too-distant future of either a stroke, a heart attack, an apparent suicide, or a single-car accident. That is the reality of how ruthless the people in this arena really are. Saints do not fall into such commerce by mistake.

The story of what happens one day in New York when a young lawyer (Ben Affleck) and a businessman (Sam Jackson) share a small automobile accident on F.D.R. Drive and their mutual road rage escalates into a feud.What I find interesting is that comments on this film tend to be regarding which side to take, with some saying Jackson is "vile" or Affleck is "selfish". And, really, that is part of the beauty of this movie -- we naturally want to pick a side, like one guy and dislike another. But they are both flawed people.Affleck is selfish, cheats on his wife, cuts off a guy's credit, flees an accident... his only redeeming quality is he is the only non-corrupt member of a law firm, though that hardly makes up for his failings. Jackson has a terrible temper, breaks things, has little self-control and is an alcoholic. Sure, he wants to reunite with his kids, which is noble, but maybe he should not be able to. Even if he had received Affleck's insurance card, he still would have been late for court...

To me, this movie was a depiction of the tension between the needs of the ego of the immature person and the needs of a person to follow their bliss and serve more than the ego as one becomes a true adult. The scene in front of the painting where Gavin Banek describes the girl at the beach is a description of a person wrenched between the "house' they have spent their life building and the call TODAY to the life you were meant to live: "It's like you go to the beach. You go down to the water. It's a little cold. You're not sure you want to go in. There's a pretty girl standing next to you, and you know that if you just asked her your name, you would leave with her. Forget your life, whoever you came with, and leave the beach with her. And after that day, you remember. Not every day, every week… she comes back to you. It's the memory of another life you could have had. Today is that girl." Gavin (and Doyle?) finds the "edge" that everyone should find, where you find a way to use your talents in service of your calling. Unfortunately, usually first it involves the fall. Then, comes the lane change. I loved the acting and directing as well.

This movie is everything that is wrong with Wall Street and everything that is wrong with Hollywood.It could be said that this movie is a morality tale, a look into the mind of main character Gavin Banek (Affleck) as he wrestles with the wrongs he has done.The problem? Gavin Banek continues to perpetrate horrible act after horrible act as he punishes Doyle Gibson (Jackson) for an incident that is Banek's fault. HE doesn't just get malicious, he commits multiple federal crimes until the point where Gibson is finally pushed into pushing back...and then Banek continues to commit FURTHER crimes.In the end the moral is that all of the damage can be undone and so Gavin Banek is a "good" person.Banek flees the scene of a car accident that he causes causing Doyle to miss a custody hearing and lose his children.Banek has a hacker destroy Doyle's credit, costing him the chance to purchase a house and save his family.Banek goes to the school of Doyle's children and tells them that Doyle is going to kidnap his own children, and then leaves a message for Doyle that his children have been injured in school...leading to Doyle's arrest.Banek had been cheating on his wife with someone at his law firm.Banek KNOWINGLY defrauded an elderly millionaire so that his father in law could gain control of a charitable foundation worth over 100 million dollars.Then, Bank "makes good" by seeing the light and works to undo the damage he's done, rolling back all the harm he's done. This is supposed to make him sympathetic...and a "good man".Screw that. I spent most of the movie hoping that Banek, his unlikable wife and his horrid father in law would die horribly. They are the epitome of everything that is wrong with our country and yet we are to believe that everything can be okay. That all of the harm that Banek did can be undone and we can learn that Banek is a "good" person simply by his undoing everything he's done? Screw Affleck for making this propagandist piece of crap!