Cinema review 'Changing lanes' (From Penarth Times)

Cinema review 'Changing lanes'

WHEN you have a cool idea and two mega-Hollywood stars, where can your film go wrong?

Well, thankfully for director Roger Mitchell, it didn't go wrong at all. Here is Changing Lanes.

When a Wall Street lawyer Gavin (Ben Affleck) and reformed alcoholic Doyle (Samuel L Jackson), on his way to court to get custody of his children, crash in the early hours of traffic, a really important file is accidentally exchanged between them.

The loss of the file may make Gavin go to jail but Doyle won't give it back because the crash made him miss court.

The two of them then spend the day ruining each other's lives in the heat of revenge.

Ben Affleck and Samuel L Jackson are two of the finest, modern Hollywood actors around, but for some reason they still have their critics.

Okay, some of their films may not have gone down too well with the critics with the likes of Pearl Harbor and Deep Blue Sea, but now Changing Lanes should finally make these critics scratch their heads when trying to dish out some more unfair criticism.

The two only have four scenes of screentime together but they still manage to keep the unique tension between them alive, and credit must go to director Mitchell there for keeping great control over his characters.

The film is gripping all the way with Mitchell's constant use of hand-held cameras keeping the film's narrative energetic in even the slowest of scenes.

If the film has a fault in any way, it's the lack of sense of time as you have no idea where in the day the film is.

It's not as action packed as some may think it is, but it's still entertainment at the least.