Changing Lanes

Oh, how I hated CHANGING LANES.

CHANGING LANES is a morality tale about how small choices can add up to big choices and about the consequences of breaking the social compact. Consequently, it operated at a profound disadvantage: Morality tales are hard to do. The best morality tales handle their themes obliquely, trusting their audiences to divine their themes and understanding that "a-ha" moments reinforce those themes far better than any speech can, but CHANGING LANES doesn't have that kind of faith in itself or its viewers. The film has all the subtlety of a water skiing squirrel - what you see is precisely what you get.

Here's the setup: Ben Affleck is a successful lawyer. Samuel L. Jackson is a loser trying to get his life back together. They have a fender-bender, and Affleck writes Jackson a blank check and speeds off, leaving an important document behind. This makes Jackson late for a court appointment, and he exacts his revenge by later withholding the document. Affleck reacts, Jackson reacts, Affleck reacts some more, etc., and before we know it we're watching a double helix downward spiral.

Now, if you like watching downward spirals, you might enjoy this movie. If, however, watching one man have everything that matters stripped from him while the other kinda regrets his actions is your idea of a good time, knock yourself out. Personally, I found this movie so depressing, so painful to watch, that it left me wondering why anyone would create such a horrible experience, then actually put it out there for the world to see.

I only finished this movie because I was watching it with a valued friend who loves it. It's easily the most miserable time I've had this month.