Changing Lanes

At last, they're releasing films for thinking adults in this, the pre-season of the blockbuster onslaught. "Changing Lanes" with Samuel Jackson and Ben Affleck is a substantial film with compelling adult themes that go far beyond the basics of right versus wrong. Business and personal ethics come in for a substantial workout, and I was enthralled throughout at the premiere by its quick pacing and storyline.

Samuel Jackson, who would be the closest thing to a hero in this convoluted story of several flawed people, is an insurance telemarketer and recently divorced g father of two boys. A recovering alcoholic, Doyle Gibson is desperate to regain his wife's trust, and continuing access to his two adolescent boys. "Boys need their father" Gibson reads haltingly at his joint custody hearing from his handwritten notes, "our streets are full of boys" who are suffering from the absence of their fathers, he says to the bored family court judge.

Jackson character is more in "187" mode here as the troubled family man, instead of the smooth and deadly Jules the hit man in "Pulp Fiction" or the renegade cop in "Shaft." In "187" he was a fearful, nerdy teacher recovering psychically from an attack by a student until he becomes an avenging vigilante, cleansing the school of its ne'er do wells. He even had a wimpy teacherly walk, with his head bobbling along like one of those windshield dolls.

Affleck is a Wall Street lawyer to a $100 million-plus foundation, dancing on the edge of a deal following the death of the fund's benefactor that would determine ultimate control of the charity. "Changing Lanes" is about the unlikely meeting and entertwining of these two disparate men who become more desperate as their personal stakes rise.

The theme of Redemption and Right Action runs throughout the engaging 100 minutes or so of "Changing Lanes," as both men do things they know to be well off the right path but think they're caught in the groove, and unwilling to change. "Is there any other way?" Gavin asks a shadowy fixer, described by Toni Collette's lawyer and lover of Gavin as 'someone who gets people o do things they don't want to do."

"Sure, you can call the guy up and just be nice to him," the agent says. But Gavin can't do that, though. he's caught in the web and can't see past it to get out. Gavin was once an idealistic lawyer, trying to make the world a better place. Along the way he started cutting corners, and rationilzing the wrong he's doing, as did his mentor and father in law.

"I can live with myself because at the end of the day I believe I've done more good than harm," says Gavin's father-in-law. Played by Sidney Pollack, himself a director who has lost none of his touch, he tries to school his son-in-law in the real world, not the idealistic one he's trying to live in. What gives "Changing Lanes" its power is the ambiguity of the story, as two nice guys are caught in a web where they're not so nice.

The characters are given pretty evenhanded treatment, and although the audience could be easily disposed to dislike Affleck's smart-ass Wall street lawyer, he's given a humanizing face with good character development of the film under the hands of director Roger Michell. His tight framing on faces and use of handheld cameras and grainy film stock under the film's mostly overcast lighting gives a somber, gritty look that focuses our concentration on the people, their expressions, and what they're saying.

"That's not me, what I said to you this morning," apologizes Gavin clumsily to Doyle, but it's way, way too late. Affleck's Atty. Gavin still is the sort of person who's sorry -- sorry that he's been caught. Doyle also now knows that the file left at the accident site is very valuable to Gavin, and now there's a price. This starts the daylong cat-and-mouse, one-upsmanship cycle that, despite the commercials and movie posters, has little to do with Road Rage. There is sort of a chase scene, but "Changing Lanes" is more contemplative, and almost European in its pacing and subject matter of knowing the "oughtness" of things.

It's long been my contention that a quality film will have standouts even in small roles. Two more such examples are those played by William Hurt and Toni Collette, and to a lesser extent, but only because of her limited screen time, by Amanda Peet as the wife of Gavin. The TV star gained notice as a hit lady apprentice in the engaging crime farce "The Whole Nine Yards" opposite Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry.

Hurt is the conscience of Doyle, his best bud, and co-Alcoholics anonymous pal who he calls when the brown liquid in the thick bottles starts calling to him. "Alcohol really isn't your drug of choice," hurt tells Doyle. "You're addicted to chaos!" Doyle has the struck between -he-eyes look when a close friend's declaration hits home, and we know that it's true. His wife leaving him, the loss of his home, his kids and his job follows a pattern everybody sees but him.

Collette played with Jackson in the otherwise wretched "Shaft" remake as the damsel in distress after the mother of the boy who saw dead people in "The Sixth Sense." The British actress who, like the island sistah Minnie Driver can turn her accent off quicker than a light switch, has gotten more film work on this side of the Atlantic that people wouldn't believe she's not an American actress.

"Changing Lanes" is the type of film that nobody's opinion under thirty should be given real credence. The themes of parenting boys, trying to make a marriage work, trying to pay for a real home, dealing with banks; these aren't themes that are on most young people's radar. Only with the passage of about four decades can an adult have the perspective of being able to see the past paths and see that some should have been taken and others passed by. Regret is not something the young deal with in more than a passing way.

"Changing Lanes" is permeated with the concept of choices; moral and ethical choices. This is a film packed with meat, and after the advance premiere showing Tuesday night we were still talking about it in the theatre lobby almost twenty minutes after the lights came back up.

NEXT: Its Cinema Views Spring Blooming of capsule reviews as Forest Whittaker stars as a smooth criminal trying to extract Jodie Foster and her daughter from the impregnable "PANIC ROOM." Bill Paxton and Matthew McGonnaghy star in the haunting serial killer "FRAILTY."

Then, it's Back To The Teen Time Antics in the engaging "CLOCK STOPPERS;" Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd from "Kiss The Girls" are reteamed in "HIGH CRIMES;" and Brit brother Colin Salmon racks up even more Sci Fi adventures with "5th Element's" Milla Jovovich in the relentlessly thrilling "RESIDENT EVIL."

Do you have your own cinema views? Write, email or call kevinjwalker@blackwebportal.com (414) 454-9673, or write P.O. Box 1324-53201, and be sure and visit the film websites at

http://cinemaviews.tripod.com;

http://www.blackwebportal.com/wire ;

http://www.theMBO.com/walkerworld.htm and http://www.milwaukeecommunityjournal.net at Entertainment. --kjw

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