A lawyer and a businessman are involved in a crash on a busy motorway in which the business man crashes his car so that it is out of use and the lawyer is in a rush so leaves him stranded on the motorway. What the lawyer doesn't know is that the business man was on his way to court to fight for his rights to see his children and stop them moving half way around the world. On the motorway the lawyer left the file that contains huge evidence for a court case. The two are engaged in a battle to get what they want.This film starred: Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Affleck & Toni Collette.Changing Lanes was released in 2002. In my opinion this is a decent film but had potential to be better. However in this film Ben Affleck was amazing in this film. He is one of the best actors in the film business. Samuel L. Jackson was good but I will remember this film for the acting performance from Ben Affleck. I do recommend this film because it has good actor performances and a good plot with decent execution.***/***** Could be worse.

Anyone with knowledge of courts and the law will find the initial plot device absurd. If the original power of appointment was such an important and irreplaceable document, the firm partners should have had Atty. Gavin Banek go to court to file the document escorted with security guards. More realistically, they would have filed a motion with a certified copy of the document, and later file the original if necessary. That Gavin, knowing the document was irreplaceable nonetheless brings it out of the car to be inadvertently dropped is also quite silly. The other nonsense is that Gavin had to be on time at the hearing, or else, even after suffering the traffic accident. Having Gavin do other things on such a precarious day, like interview job candidates, makes no sense. That Gavin is one of the partners son-in-law further piles on the absurdity.Meanwhile, Doyle Gibson, while no lawyer, does some very stupid things of his own, like not cashing on the opportunity and picking up a computer in a bank and throwing it down to the floor (with no consequences). Later Gavin very tensely confronts the same officer, who seemingly not having learned his lesson, continues to behave like a jerk. I was expecting Gavin to throw down to the floor his newly installed computer too.Then we have Master Hacker, who can with just a name enter a man's banking and credit accounts and delete them all and declare him bankrupt, and later undo all these things, all in just minutes. He is a useful, convenient but totally unreal device. Why use him instead of hiring some goons to force Doyle to return the document, well, I guess the reason was that Gavin did not know any goons, only Master Hacker.Gavin gets panicky and activates the sprinklers in the office in order to access a file. Water flows in buckets for minutes while people are forced to evacuate and firemen rush in. Gavin returns later in the evening and the office seems OK, no signs of the deluge. Hell, even one of the interview boys is still around.Why then the 5 stars you may ask? The film seemed good intended. And contrary to others, I liked the denouement. A lot.

This is a superb movie. It provides action, stirs compassion and wreaks frustration as we ride out the shock waves created by one small moment in the lives of two men previously unknown to one another. They are each on their way to what they perceive to be the most important event of their lives, the career of one, the family ties of the other. Their goals are disrupted, even destroyed, by the decision made in the moments of their initial meeting, which, we begin to realize, required the efforts of both men for that decision to have been made, and for all the ramifications which unfold with each new choice in their individual efforts to fix what has been broken.

I first saw this on a bus in Mexico and it left an impression on me. I later forgot about it and just recently saw it on Netflix and rewatched it. I really enjoyed this movie for a couple reasons. I like the element of two people making really stupid decisions and letting their emotions control them and showing how that kind of thing can lead to things getting way out of hand really fast. In one day, two men effectively destroy each others lives because of an initial bad encounter that neither men are willing to move on from. I love the scene later with William Hurt as he shouts at Jackson's character telling him he's addicted to chaos. He should be given credit for the fact that after a cool down period he was about to give the file back, but had he been willing to fix things earlier, the whole mess could have been avoided. As I see it, both men are to blame in the end. That is why I love the ending of this movie. Both characters repent of their mistakes, are willing to accept the consequences, and things for the most part end up fixed and each side is better off.