"Changing Lanes" starts with a collision between two cars during the New York morning rush hour. Neither driver is injured, and neither car sustains serious damage. Yet this seemingly-trivial happening sets in motion a chain of events that will lead to both men committing several crimes, up to and including attempted murder.<br /><br />The two drivers are, by coincidence, both on their way to Court hearings. One is Gavin Banek, an ambitious young lawyer with a top New York law firm, who is acting in an important case involving the administration of a charity set up under the will of one of the firm's clients. The other is Doyle Gipson, a divorced father on his way to a hearing concerning the custody of his two sons. As a result of the collision, Gipson arrives late for the hearing only to find that the judge, impatient with waiting for him, has awarded custody to his ex-wife, meaning that she is now free to take them to Oregon where she intends to live.<br /><br />Things also go badly for Banek at his hearing. Upon arrival at Court he finds that he is missing a vital document and realises that he must have accidentally left it with Gipson while the two were exchanging names and addresses. The judge gives him until the end of the day to file the document with the Court. When Banek traces Gipson, however, and asks him to return the document, Gipson, still angry about the collision and about the outcome of his own court case, refuses. Banek thereupon hires a computer expert to hack into Gipson's computer records and tamper with his credit record, effectively making him bankrupt. He then contacts Gipson again, informs him what he has done, and tells him that he will restore Gipson's credit rating in exchange for the missing document. This leads, in effect, to a declaration of all-out war between the two, each trying to outdo the other in bad behaviour, culminating in Gipson trying to kill Banek by sabotaging his car.<br /><br />This film might have been better if it had been made as a black comedy, but the film-makers chose instead to make it as a serious human drama. James Berardinelli described it as a statement of how external influences can cause an otherwise decent human being to do things that are despicable. It does not really work as such, largely because the two protagonists (and most of the other characters as well) are so unlikeable. Despite his attempt to kill Banek, we can perhaps regard Samuel L. Jackson's Gipson as being as much sinned against as sinning. He is, after all, subject to severe provocation, not only from Banek, but also from his ex-wife Valerie and from a bureaucratic court system that seems unwilling to make allowances in his favour, and he does have at least one redeeming characteristic in that he is a devoted father to his sons. It must be said, however, that many of his problems are self-inflicted. (He is, for example, a recovering alcoholic, and it was his drinking, and drink-fuelled violence, which led to the breakdown of his marriage). Perhaps the best evaluation of his character comes from his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor: "You know, booze isn't really your drug of choice anyway. You're addicted to chaos".<br /><br />It is, however, more difficult to regard Ben Affleck's Banek as an "otherwise decent human being". Banek works for the sort of law firm which has, to say the very least, a relaxed attitude to legal ethics. Although he is not mired in outright criminality quite as deeply as some of his colleagues, especially the senior partner Stephen Delano, who also happens to be his wife's father, Banek's moral standards are nevertheless low. In an attempt at self-justification Delano asks rhetorically "At the end of the day, I do more good than harm. What other standard have I got?" This self-assessment, however, is not borne out by the plot; the film shows us a good deal of the harm that Delano has done and no evidence that he has ever done any good. Apart from a contrived and implausible ending, there is no evidence that Banek has ever done any more good than his father-in-law. When Banek is forced to confess to his colleagues that the vital document has gone missing, Delano's solution is to manufacture a replacement by combining the donor's signature from another document with a photocopy. Banek objects to such forgery on ethical grounds, even though his own behaviour towards Gipson is just as illegal and could be regarded as even more immoral.<br /><br />Affleck seems to have a talent for picking the wrong films (see also "Reindeer Games", "Pearl Harbor", "200 Cigarettes" and several others). If he adds any more to his collection of turkeys he will be able to corner the Christmas market. Although it garnered some critical acclaim, for me "Changing Lanes" falls firmly in the turkey category. It struck me less as a study of two otherwise decent men under pressure than an entirely predictable account of what might happen when an alcoholic chaos addict meets a shyster lawyer. The result is neither edifying nor enlightening. 4/10