Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
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.
Changing Lanes is elevated primarily by its two lead performances — Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson both deliver nuanced, morally complex work that transcends the film's sometimes schematic premise. The plot is a tightly wound ethical thriller about escalation and consequence, though it occasionally strains credibility and leans on contrivance to keep the vendetta spiral going. Cinematography is competent New York location work but unremarkable. The film's central conceit — two men destroying each other over a single bad day — has genuine dramatic traction but isn't especially novel in the legal/road-rage thriller space. The ending deflates somewhat, opting for a tidy moral resolution that feels too neat given the raw, messy territory the film explored.