Changing Lanes

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald Rating: * * *)

You know those nights when there's no Super 12 on TV and you can't be bothered with Part 2 of the Sunday Theatre ... this is one of those movies you pick up. It ain't something you'll remember much past the final credits, but at least you get to choose how you spend your 100 minutes.

Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) is a Wall St lawyer who is having a bad day. He is late for a tricky court case in which he has to prove his firm was empowered to manage the estate of a recently, conveniently and lucratively deceased millionaire.

On the freeway he rear-ends the car of Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson; pictured above). Coincidentally Gipson is also on his way to court, the family court, where the volatile insurance salesman and recovering alcoholic has a custody hearing.

He has just been approved for a loan to buy a house and wants to persuade his wife (Kim Staunton) not to take herself and their two kids to Oregon.

Banek is too busy to swap insurance companies or phone numbers with Gipson. He's in such a hurry that he leaves an important file behind.

At court the judge gives him until the end of the day to find the file. If he can't, he and his firm will be ruined. Gipson arrives in his courtroom late, too, and his wife storms out, taking his dreams with her.

From these pretty much everyday beginnings, Changing Lanes becomes a larger-than-life thriller. Banek winds up the pressure and rear-ends the law, and morality, trying to get his file from Gipson.

He runs foul of his colleague-mistress (Toni Collette); his wife (Amanda Peet); his father-in-law and boss (Sydney Pollack). Gipson, at the other end of the chase, is equally desperate as his life unravels around him.

Better than your average drama, this morality tale of how a minor incident changes two seemingly unrelated men's lives forever is unfortunately overplayed and ultimately overwrought. And speaking of Ben Affleck, here's another coincidence in the next movie.

DVD details: movie (98min); commentary, director Roger Michell; Making Of ... ; deleted and extended scenes; alternate endings; A Writer's Perspective feature.