Changeling

Changeling

2008, dir. Clint Eastwood; star. Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Michael Kelly, Amy Ryan, Colm Feore
2 hours 21 minutes

Saw the Changeling Friday morning by myself at South Keys. All I had was a diet pepsi, which did last all the way through this film which is about 30 - 40 minutes too long.

You know how some movies have, at the end, some epilogical text over the screen just before the credits. Well, during the last half hour of this film, I kept thinking that was was going on would usually just be covered by that kind of text. And then, when the film finally ended, they actually had some of that concluding text ... and, the first three paragraphs simply restated what the audience had just seen happen fifteen minutes earlier.

Angelina Jolie was very good in the film, in a very nuanced performance (not a stereotypical weak woman, but not overly strong in an unbelievable way), but the rest of the cast doesn't do much. The story was a bit hard to believe, but apparently it's all based on ftacts. Yet through the first half, I kept thinking that there's no way the police would get away with something so ridiculous, and yet, thinking about it after, I guess the way they do it makes sense.

3 1/2 stars out of 5