Hey folks, Harry here... damn Caller From L.A. didn't care for this one much at all... And ya know... it does sound awful. Just give a listen... OUCH...
When I am stuck in that dark theater in a horrible time-wasting film, my first thoughts are to walk out of the film, spit the taste out of my mouth, and call it a night. But then I think of you, the AICN reader, who deserve to know which films to lay your money down for and which to simply forget.
And thus begins my review of a test screening of Changing Lanes, with Ben Affleck and Sam Jackson. The pitch: During one day in NYC, Ben and Sam bump cars, and their lives are changed due to missed meetings. The rest of the plot shows how Ben and Sam use and abuse each other to get what they want. The style is a drama, but someone forgot to drop dramatic characters and situations into this piece of crap. Everyone around me scored this as Poor or Fair.
Some lowlights:
- Ben, a lawyer, leaves a message saying 'gimme me secret file or I'll hunt you down and hurt you' on an answering machine. Dumbest lawyer in the world.
- Lots of scenes that last too long. Reminded me of that 'artistic' screening of Psycho where each frame was shown for 10 seconds or so.
- Ben's character does harm to Sam, and then realizes it was bad, and then does harm, and then realizes it was bad, and then does harm, and then...
- The directorial skills seemed functional at best. My favorite scene was the 20 second shot of Ben's hair on the back of his head with no dialogue or action. Could someone scan that in and place it on benshair.com or something?
- Soap opera monologues from William Hurt, Amanda Peet, and Sydney Pollack. Toni Collette is wasted here.
I mostly blame director Roger Mitchell (Notting Hill), first-time writer Chap Taylor and writer Michael Tolkin (The Player) for making me sit through this film for 90 minutes.
How to fix it? I dunno, maybe add a laugh track? With any smarts, they'll release this as a low-profile film - "Caveman's Valentine" anyone?.
Cheers,
--Caller From LA
