Racing along FDR Drive one rainy Good Friday morning, two New York City drivers — slick attorney Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) and nervous recovering alcoholic Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) — smash into each other while dueling for the same lane. Both are due for crucial court dates: Gavin for a probate battle over a multimillion-dollar trust, Doyle for an attempt to appease his ex-wife before she takes their two sons away to Oregon. Both are well meaning but frazzled.
So begins “Changing Lanes,” an unusual mix of high-octane action thriller and probing moral drama from director Roger Michell and writers Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin. It’s a movie that confronts issues big-studio films shy away from (such as ethical dilemmas and real racial and class conflicts) and, in general, it grips and provokes, even while sometimes sliding into contrivance and thematic jury-rigging. I liked it, sometimes despite myself.
“Changing Lanes,” at its best, is a take-it-to-the-edge study of what happens when people so overuse the accoutrements of modern communication — from cell phones to computers — that they lose the pulse, meaning and function of human speech. Neither of “Changing Lanes'” colliding drivers really listens to each other, for most of the movie. When they leave cars to swap addresses, Gavin wants to quickly write Doyle a blank check for all damages, but Doyle wants to slowly trade all relevant insurance information. Steamed, Gavin speeds off, breezily calling “Better luck next time!” But the hasty advocate drops the key document in his case: a power of attorney from a deceased donor, which the stung Doyle retrieves.
The results are bad and soon get much worse. Both men hit a wall in court: Gavin is admonished by the judge and ordered to produce the missing documents pronto, Doyle loses his custody case even before he walks in. When Gavin discovers that Doyle has the file and Doyle decides to hang onto it and torment him awhile, they ignite a day-and-a-half- long war waged over bank records and legal files, phony bankruptcies and forged letters. It’s a classic knock-down-drag-out between two guys who don’t know when to quit.
Michell’s movie is about the clash of two different worlds and viewpoints — and, in a way, the film’s style is a clash as well. Some of it is standard Hollywood high-concept showmanship, but part of it is dark, serious and skeptical: a portrait of our society with the moral flaws hanging out. Another part is a classic actor’s duel: Affleck playing a cocky ex-idealist yuppie who gets his comeuppance; Jackson etching a hard-working prole with a temper and a bottomless thirst for booze that he tries to hold in check.
Their worlds are not just different but near night-and-day reversals.
A well-compensated hunk afloat in a world of affluence built out of lies and deals, Affleck’s Gavin is monitored by his cynical boss Delano (Sydney Pollack, in the role on which he holds the franchise) and prodded by his office ex-mistress and gadfly Michelle (Toni Collette). Jackson’s Doyle is simply fighting to achieve the ordinary: a home, a simple job, a little dignity, peace with his wife, Valerie (Kim Staunton), time with his sons.
The movie doesn’t trivialize racial or class issues or make the combatants into black-and-white good and bad guys. The writers know that America is a wholly just society only on the surface, that money talks (and even screams) and that the glib rationale (delivered by Delano) that a man is OK as long as he does more good than bad by the end of the day is a dictum many live by, shamelessly.
Of the two writers, you’d suspect that Tolkin –who has confronted ethical minefields in “The Player” and his own directorial efforts “Rapture” and “The New Age” — supplied that added moral dimension. If that’s so, he should have added even more. Too much of “Changing Lanes” seems thin. It’s provocative that Michelle, Gavin’s conscience, also leads him to the cyber-bully Finch (Dylan Baker), who falsely destroys Doyle’s credit rating — but it’s also hard to swallow.
“Changing Lanes,” to its credit, is about consequences as well as actions, spiritual crises as well as physical ones, and, if you focus on the good rather than the bad or indifferent — something the two drivers should have remembered — the movie’s strengths and flaws retreat into perspective. A thrilling ride but also a thoughtful one, it’s a movie that does manage to do more good than bad by the end of the day.
`Changing Lanes’
(star)(star)(star)
Directed by Roger Michell; written by Chap Taylor, Michael Tolkin; photographed by Salvatore Totino; edited by Christopher Tellefsen; production designed by Kristi Zea; music by David Arnold; produced by Scot Rudin. A Paramount Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:38. MPAA rating: R (language, violence).
Gavin Banek …………… Ben Affleck
Doyle Gipson ………….. Samuel L. Jackson
Michelle ……………… Toni Collette
Delano ……………….. Sydney Pollack
Doyle’s AA Sponsor …….. William Hurt
Character …………….. Amanda Peet
