Changing Lanes (2002)
Directed by Roger Michell
A rush-hour fender-bender on New York City's crowded FDR Drive, under most circumstances, wouldn't set off a chain reaction that could decimate two people's lives. But on this day, at this time, a minor collision will turn two complete strangers into vicious adversaries. Their means of destroying each other might be different, but their goals, ultimately, will be the same: Each will systematically try to dismantle the other's life in a reckless effort to reclaim something he has lost.
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What critics compared Changing Lanes to
Unhinged is technically an original story, though it may remind you of better rage movies (Changing Lanes, with Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson, is quite good) and road thrillers – Steven Spielberg’s debut feature Duel from 1971 remains a case study in how to do it right.
If you want a good road-rage movie, seek out 2002’s Changing Lanes.
Sure, it’s a B-picture, a straight-up rage-on-the-road genre movie in the “Duel,””Changing Lanes” or “Falling Down” mold.
A smarter writer-director team might have goosed up this sensational revenge scenario into a timely state-of-the-nation address in the tradition of Do the Right Thing , Falling Down or Changing Lanes .
Unlike films like Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993) and Roger Michell’s Changing Lanes (2002), Unhinged doesn’t really attempt to delve into the deeper intricacies of why Crowe’s character is so…er… Unhinged .
It also steals shamelessly from better, similarly-themed films, such as Duel, Falling Down and Changing Lanes.
At about the same time, two different studios released films on Blu-ray about urban angst, 2002's "Changing Lanes" and 1993's "Falling Down."
The plot owes something to previous films such as Barry Levinson’s Tin Men (two salesman in an escalating spiral of revenge) and Falling Down (Michael Douglas having an absolutely appalling day).
Although that might sound like something of a black comedy combination of elements from films such as "The War of the Roses" and "Falling Down" - and the film borders on that genre at times and easily could have completely gone down that path - there's more at work here than just that.
Think Falling Down (Michael Douglas) in a new decade.
But “The Gift” cannily avoids conventional catharsis while doing enough to quench a casual audience’s thirst for comeuppance; in that regard, it’s reminiscent of “Changing Lanes,” another thoughtful morality play that transcended marketing materials that made it look like slick junk.
Even Laura Linney, who seems mostly left on the sidelines with her thick New England drawl, gets to deliver a final, penetrating monologue that may hit some of the same chords that Amanda Peet�s did last year in Changing Lanes.