It's New York, it's rush hour, it's a minor fender-bender on the freeway. Yet Roger Michell's original thriller sees hot-shot lawyer Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) and separated father Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) become involved in a battle of nerves because each has disrupted the other's life. In Banek's case, he's lost the file that Gipson picks up that will ensure his law firm gains control of a millionaire's estate. In Gipson's case, the accident makes him late for a court hearing where he could prove he'd raised a mortgage on a family house that might persuade his ex-wife and son to stay with him. Banek believes money and muscle will solve the problem of his missing file but his threats are countered by Gipson's streetwise savvy. And so the threats and counter-threats begin...
In lesser hands, this would have been another ho-hum actioner but director Roger Michell, probably best known for Notting Hill and Enduring Love, stays true to a script from Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin, both novices, who have decided that rounded, flawed characters are more interesting than cyphers. Banek is a product of his up-bringing; he married the boss's daughter (Amanda Peet) to get where he is but she, in one stunning scene, pins his morality exactly to the wall. Gipson is an ex-alcoholic with anger-management problems trying to get his life back together. While there is verbal violence, this is as much a cerebral battle between the two with a strong supporting cast including Toni Collette, Sydney Pollack and William Hurt adding to, but never overwhelming, the struggle.
Changing Lanes is a Film programme that first aired in 2002 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
