Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Changing Lanes 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 21, 2024

Roger Michell's "Changing Lanes" (2002) arrives on 4K Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include archival audio commentary by Roger Michell; two short documentaries; deleted and extended scenes; and vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Road rage is an awful contemporary phenomenon. Anyone who has experienced it can confirm that it could easily transform drivers into utterly irrational, often quite dangerous animals that would not hesitate to attack each other. It is sad, too, because it is easily avoidable. A few seconds, a couple of minutes, or even an hour or two of wasted time can never be precious enough to risk what can be lost during a road rage altercation, which is a lot.

This is precisely what Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) and Doyle Gibson (Samuel L. Jackson) discover on a chilly morning in New York City after they have a minor accident on the highway. They pull over but because both are rushing to get to a courthouse on time fail to do what is right. Banek simply hands Gibson a blank check and jumps back into his Mercedes, while Gibson accidentally retains a file that Banek has used to sign the check. After that, over the course of twenty-four hours, everything that could go wrong for the two goes terribly wrong.

Banek, who represents one of the city’s biggest law firms, appears before a judge to close a case involving a massive inheritance and discovers that he does not have the file with the paperwork that is needed to do it. The judge agrees to wait until the end of the day for him to recover the file, but he has no idea how to locate Gibson, so an hour later he assures his bosses that the job is done and begins improvising. But the harder he tries to figure out a solution to his problem, the bigger his misery becomes.

Gibson, who is a recovering alcoholic, appears late before a different judge and fails to convince him that he is a reformed man who can take care of his wife and two children. The judge tells him that if he truly cared about his family, he would have done whatever it took to be on time for the hearing. On the way out of the courtroom, his wife then refuses to believe that he has secured a loan to purchase a home for her and the children. Soon after, he learns that she is planning to take them to the other side of the country, Oregon, where they can start from scratch without him.

In the hours after their disastrous court experiences, Banek and Gibson become very angry and irrational. Banek reaches out to a shady computer wiz who can access any person’s personal information and ruin his life, while Gibson confronts a couple of strangers in a bar and later gets thrown in jail. But as their anger subsides, both slowly begin to reevaluate their misery and eventually how they have behaved during and after the highway accident.

It is impossible not to agree with the messages of Roger Mitchell’s film Changing Lanes. The first is a timeless one. Rush slowly if you want to get where you need to go on time. The second is probably timeless, too. Car accidents will happen for as long as there are cars on the road, so when they do, the parties that are involved in them need to remain calm and follow protocol. If these two rules are followed, road rage and all of its consequences are instantly eliminated.

But a lot happens in Changing Lanes because Mitchell prevents its two leads from seeing and thinking as clearly as they should, and they do not have good excuses for doing so, which is why the delivery of its messages is problematic. Consider the following examples:

Banek offers Gibson a blank check to reimburse him for any damages his junky car has sustained. In a situation like this, what rational person would reject the check and insist on “doing the right thing”, which would be dealing with an insurance company that will undoubtedly offer less for the same loss? With the blank check, Gibson could easily purchase another car, too. It would have been a used one, but this option is still a vastly superior one in comparison to the one the insurance company can offer. After Banek reaches out to the computer wiz, and he pulls out Gibson’s personal information, why does he rush to bankrupt him? Why doesn’t he track him down now and attempt to recover the file through a proper discussion? Banek is an experienced lawyer, so talking to people and convincing them to agree with him ought to be his strength, isn’t it?

Some of the drama in Changing Lanes is entertaining, but what fuels it, which is the supposedly inexorable desire of the two men to ruin their lives, is not supported by logic. It is true that road rage is allergic to logic, but these men abandon it for almost an entire day while undergoing massive character transformations.

Changing Lanes 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber's release of Changing Lanes is a 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack. The 4K Blu-ray disc is Region-Free. However, the Blu-ray disc is Region-A "locked".

The release introduces a new 4K makeover of Changing Lanes which can be viewed in native 4K and 1080p. In native 4K, the 4K makeover can be viewed with Dolby Vision and HDR grades. I viewed it with Dolby Vision.

Please note that some of the screencaptures that appear with this article are taken from the 4K Blu-ray and downscaled to 1080p. Therefore, they do not accurately reflect the quality of the 4K content on the 4K Blu-ray disc, including the actual color values of this content.

Screencaptures #1-15 are from the Blu-ray.
Screencaptures #18-28 are from the 4K Blu-ray.

On my system, Changing Lanes looked fantastic. The entire film had a very healthy and attractive organic appearance that made the often quite gloomy outdoor footage look as impressive as the nicely-lit indoor footage. Delineation, clarity, and depth were always very pleasing, while density levels I thought were as good as they could have been. Also, fluidity is outstanding, so all of the fast-moving footage and cuts and zooms look great. Color balance is convincing. All primaries look healthy and remain solid, while the supporting nuances are beautifully balanced. I went back and forth between the native 4K presentation and the 1080p presentation to see how the Dolby Vision affects color reproduction in some of the more delicate areas, like the gloomier footage, and like the various ranges of nuances I saw a lot. Darker nuances look very, very good. Image stability is outstanding. I did not encounter any encoding anomalies to report in our review.

Changing Lanes 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

I viewed the entire film with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The accident in the beginning of the film will give you an excellent idea of what to expect from it, which is great clarity, sharpness, and separation. There are plenty of subtle dynamic contrasts as well, and not only in areas where the music has a prominent role to play. While this is not surprising because Changing Lanes is a very recent film, I think that it is worth pointing out because it helps its atmosphere a lot, so the lossless track clearly does what it should very well. There are no audio dropouts, distortions, or other similar anomalies to report.

Changing Lanes 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

4K BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - in this archival audio commentary, director Roger Mitchell explains where and how various sections of Changing Lanes were shot, why the Twin Towers returned to the film after some initial changes, the type of look he pursued, etc. Also, there are plenty of interesting comments about the two leads, their performances, and chemistry, as well as some of the famous supporting actors with important contributions.

BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - in this archival audio commentary, director Roger Mitchell explains where and how various sections of Changing Lanes were shot, why the Twin Towers returned to the film after some initial changes, the type of look he pursued, etc. Also, there are plenty of interesting comments about the two leads, their performances, and chemistry, as well as some of the famous supporting actors with important contributions.

• The Making of Changing Lanes - this archival program takes a closer look at the conception and characters of Changing Lanes. Included in it are clips with interviews with Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, and Roger Michell, among others. In English, not subtitled. (15 min).

• The Writers' Perspective - in this archival program, screenwriter Michael Tolkin and Chap Taylor discuss the screenplay that Roger Michell worked with to make Changing Lanes. In English, not subtitled. (7 min).

• Deleted/Extended Scenes - in English, not subtitled. (10 min).

• Trailer - presented here is a remastered U.S. trailer for Changing Lanes. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

Changing Lanes 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Very few problems cannot be solved with proper communication. Unsurprisingly, all of the tense drama in Changing Lanes is a byproduct of improper communication. I like the two messages that emerge from the film, but their delivery avoids a lot of obvious fixes that could terminate the drama even much, much later, which is unfortunate. Kino Lorber's combo pack introduces a very strong recent 4K makeover of Changing Lanes that was prepared at Paramount Pictures.