I really liked "Changing Lanes," but there's something very depressing about it. The movie is totally believable. Everything that happens in this movie is really believable in today's world, and that's a shame. I live in Miami, a big city. It's not as big as New York, where this movie is set, but it's still a big city. Like most big cities, it's overcrowded, the traffic is horrible, and everyone is in a hurry to get to where they need to go, to do what they need to do. We're all so caught up with our busy little lives that we don't take the time to just take a breath, look around, and wonder to ourselves if it's all really worth it. Why are we all going crazy doing what we're doing? Is it because we really have to? Is it just how we're used to living? Do we have a specific goal we're trying to achieve? Is it just to pay the bills? Whatever the reason, we're all stressed out, and sometimes, it reaches a point where we get so stressed out that we're no longer the same people. We can only take so much, and then we snap. We're animals. That's why there are so many instances of road rage. That's why people walk into work with a machine gun and spray everyone in sight. The two main characters don't get that extreme in "Changing Lanes," but they still go pretty overboard.
This is a movie that coulda just been a cheesy flick where two guys duke it our in various ways trying to get back at each other. Fortunately, it doesn't go that route, nor should it. That's not how real life is. Everyday when I drive to work, it's an hour-long drive (without traffic, it would be a little less than twenty minutes). Then another hour driving home. Naturally, there have been times where there's some schmuck not paying attention while babbling on his or her cell phone, so he/she damn near sideswipes me. Or maybe somebody cuts me off. Or the worst, I get on I-95, and the driver to my left won't let me merge. All of these have happened plenty of times, and each time, I get so pissed off, I feel like killing that person. Okay, I might not really wanna kill that person, but if that person were to die right there, I'd be happy. It's disturbing, but I really do feel that way. I never take into consideration that the person may be a loving mother or father, or maybe that person has a sister dying of cancer. At the moment, I'm completely blind to anything about that person except that he or she really pissed me off, and I want revenge. Have you ever actually chased someone who pissed you off driving? Ever been chased because you did the same thing? I've been on both sides. Anyway, the point I'm making is that those people are all human beings, and they have lives. In "Changing Lanes," that doesn't go unnoticed. The two guys each have things going on in their lives, and it works because it makes the movie more believable, but it also helps to make both characters somewhat sympathetic. There is no "good guy" or "bad guy." In fact, in the truest definitions of the words, they're both protagonists, as well as antagonists.
Despite everything I wrote above, this isn't a movie about road rage. Actually, right after the car accident, they're both polite and civil to each other. But afterwards, things get ugly, and two people who are ordinarily nice guys become monsters. But that's not to say that they don't feel like shit after doing what they do.
The two main guys are played by actors I like a lot. Samuel L. Jackson is "Doyle Gibson," and this role is different from the kinds of roles Jackson usually plays. But he's no less believable, and as expected, his performance is first-rate. Ben Affleck plays his nemesis, "Gavin Banek." Ben Affleck is a big star who isn't taken very seriously, which is a shame, because he's actually a very good actor. More importantly, he seems like a cool guy. He likes comic books, and anyone who has the DVDs of the Kevin Smith movies he's in ("Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," "Dogma," and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back") knows that he's very down to earth, and even kinda geeky. In this movie, Ben Affleck isn't a geek at all, he's a cocky hotshot lawyer, and he's very good. It looks like he has a string of really good movies coming out (including "Daredevil," where he plays the comic book superhero of the same name), and hopefully, he'll get the respect he deserves as an actor. William Hurt and Sydney Pollack (the creepy rich guy in "Eyes Wide Shut") are very good, as is Dylan Baker (another creepy guy, but much more so, in the great, disturbing movie, "Happiness"). There's a good, understated performance by Toni Collette (she's Australian, but she's quite good at playing an American... she was in "Shaft" with Samuel L. Jackson and she played Haley Joel Osment's mom in "The Sixth Sense"), and a small appearance by Amanda Peet that may be some of the work she's ever done. I know Amanda Peet as the pretty girl with the gorgeous eyes and huge smile in "The Whole Nine Yards" and she's been in other comedies since then, like "Whipped" and "Saving Silverman." In this movie, she's not funny at all. In fact, she's downright chilling. She isn't in the movie long, but her performance is astonishing.
Surprisingly, this movie was directed by Roger Michell, the director of "Notting Hill." I liked "Notting Hill," but this is a very different movie from that one. Still, Michell knew what he was doing, and he did a great directing job, though there were a few shots that were kinda weird to me, most notably the extreme close-up on the top of Ben Affleck's head. As for the script, the story was by Chap Taylor, with a screenplay by Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin. This is the debut for Chap Taylor, but Michael Tolkin has been around. He's the well-respected writer who wrote "The Player," as well as the novel it was based on. Also, he helped write "Deep Cover" and "Deep Impact."
In his review of "Changing Lanes," Roger Ebert called it "one of the best movies of the year." I like this movie, but I'm not sure I'd go that far. It has a few slow parts, and it's perhaps a little too long. Still, "Changing Lanes" IS a very good movie, and I like it a lot. I like the story, the acting, and for the most part, the directing. I also like how they kept the shot of the Twin Towers. If you live in a small town, maybe you'd watch this movie and think it was a load of crap, that this kinda stuff could never really happen. As for us city slickers, we watch it nodding our heads in complete empathy.
Scale of 1-10: 8