Plodding, plodding, plodding.....
Added 11/21/2009
This is a 2 and a half hour movie...yet there is no reason in the world it needed to be this long. It's a pretty simple story. Cut an hour out of it and give it some "oomph" and it would have been fascinating.
By the end I really didn't care to see the finish...it didn't seem to matter to me at all what the final outcome was.
Here's the story:
One day in 1920's Los Angeles a single mother comes home from work one day and her son is gone. She frantically calls the police and they aren't very helpful. Luckily, a local minister with a radio show broadcasts her story, creates a stink about it. The police find her son and re-unite them. But it's not her son. But the police assure her she's just confused from the trauma etc. She goes to dentists, neighbours, teachers, etc. and they all agree with her; it's not her son. So she hounds the LAPD some more. They throw her in a mental ward to shut her up. Meanwhile, a serial killer (who killed 20+ children) is discovered, and her son is among the dead (perhaps). The minister gets a lawyer and storms the mental hospital, freeing the mother. They all expose what the LAPD did (the switcheroo with the kid to shut up the public about him gone missing when they should have been finding that serial killer, and locking her and other women up in a mental ward to shut them up). The LAPD captains lose their jobs, the serial killer is hanged. THE END.
That's it. That's basically all that happens in the film. It really shouldn't be that long.
It just drags and drags and drags. There's a "serial killer in court" scene, a "serial killer talks to the mother scene", and a "serial killer gets hanged scene" tacked onto the end...all for no reason at all. They could have just shown a 5 second clip of him being hanged and we would lose nothing from it. Same thing with the police captain trial. He loses his job and the courtroom all claps and cheers wildly. All of this can be cut. It's just all padded nonsense.
Also, they threw in some historical inaccuracies just for kicks. The serial killer actually killed the boys along with his mother; there were 4 boys killed, not 20+, no boys escaped from the ranch, etc.
I suggest just reading the wikipedia page and giving the movie a pass:
[...]
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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I'd give it 6 stars if I could
Added 11/18/2009
Wow, am I glad I gave THIS fairly lengthy film a chance! Clocking in at just over 2 hours and 20 minutes.
You know the story by now- a mother comes home to find that her son is missing. She does EVERYTHING in her power to try and find him, except, since the story takes place in the late 1920's, a young single woman has to face another challenge- trying to convince the local police her son is actually missing.
The cops are so crooked they actually think the mother isn't really concerned over her son and believes she WANTS her son to remain missing so she can start another life with possibly someone else, lol. That's just one of many irrational theories a certain officer at this police department had in mind.
What makes Changeling so unbelievably good is the writing. It's solid, it's brilliant, it's moving, and to be completely honest, it might even be perfection.
*Every single scene* is the very definition of captivating. Angelina Jolie gives us a performance I wasn't sure the girl even had in her. She plays the concerned/emotional mother role perfectly the entire time.
When the police try convincing her that a completely unrelated child is her own son, the story intensifies. When the police pretend Angelina's character has mental problems and doesn't even realize her own son is standing right in front of her which prompts the police to send her to a mental hospital for a lengthy visit, the story intensifies even *more*.
Guess what? That's only HALF of the things that makes this film so good. The other half of the story focuses on her son, or rather, without giving anything away, something really really horrible that her son was a part of. Unbelievable.
I HIGHLY recommend Changeling.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Jolie's Best Role By a Mile
Added 9/30/2009
This is Another masterpiece from Clint Eastwood. Jolie shines as Christine Collins who is the mother of a missing boy who disappears while she fulfills her obligations as a roller skate wearing telephone operator supervisor at a huge substation in LA. There are many twists to the story resulting from LAPD bugling yet another case in their long laundry list of mishandled crime investigations. Jolie plays the role of a hard working, intelligent, sensitive, unrelenting, hopeful mother who is tirelessly looking for her son. She becomes aided by John Malkovich who follows her case closely, using his bully pulpit to expose the LAPD for all of it's inconsistencies. Malkovich again shows why he's revered as the greatest character actor that ever donned a supporting role. All this starts out when a boy is retrieved from Illinois where he is used as a surrogate for her real son. Jolie is able to sell the fact that mothers are the ones that really know their sons. The LAPD takes the fact that Jolie's refusal to accept the boy as her son as being authentic to being delusional, shirking responsibility and "just plain nuts" Jolie then is "thrown" into the insane asylum where she undergoes many demeaning things. Jolie shows how smart and clever she can be in this role by assimilating herself into the asylum population while being conformant with the hospital doctors to prove she is not insane. If you watch carefully during the scenes where Christine Collins is restrained there is a day nurse that is played by Riki Lindhome who also plays the character of Mardell Fitzgerald in Eastwoods classic "Million Dollar Baby".
The movie takes a twist when Malkovich character exposes that the LAPD is having women incarcerated in a mental hospital when they are deemed public relations risks by the LAPD. Jeffery Donavan plays the stereotypical role of the Irish police captain who gets caught in the middle of a mess when it is found that citizens are wrongly put in the mental hospital and a second part of the mystery is uncovered when a runaway illegal alien from Canada reveals that he helped Gordon Northcutt in the mass murder of 20 boys at his ranch. This all comes to a head in a double trial where the mass murder and LAPD are both put on trial in a secretive proceeding put on a alternate docket to avoid press coverage. Jason Butler Harner's creepy portrayal of the ice cold mass murder Northcutt showed this deranged man, and his twisted attraction to Jolie's character which culminates to an unprecedented meeting between his character and Jolie's to finally confess to killing her son, However on her arrival he reneges on his deal to tell all, for fear of "going to hell". Jolie's interaction in this scene is electric when she repeatedly asks him "did you kill my son" over and over finally pressing herself to him nose to nose with gritted teeth. To me this was the epitome of great acting. I have this Tivoed on my system and highly recommend it be added to your DVD collection
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Thank you Amazon readers
Added 9/29/2009
When I ask some of my friends what sources they use to figure out if a movie is worth watching, I get "Amazon reviews" as the most frequent answer - especially as of lately. And this tops Ebert, Maltin, and even AMG! That's how I stumbled upon the Changeling: I accidentally saw the DVD cover with 4 1/2 stars and a number next to it - the number pointed to over 150 reviews with the 4 1/2 star average. That sound very good for a new movie, considering the variety of backgrounds and preferences of the Amazon reviewers. And what a movie it is! Great cinematography, great storyline, and I never thought Angelina Jolie could be that good of an actress (yet after all, she is the daughter of actor Jon Voight). And what is also impressive is that despite of the sadness and distress of the subject matter, it manages to communicate hope.
It is also interesting to do some quick research on wikipedia on the subject - since it is a true story. Even the evil Gordon Northcott in the movie looked very much like the photograph posted on the site.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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the truth is stranger than fiction
Added 9/27/2009
I can't remember the last time I have seen a movie so well put together and detailed as "Changeling." It is a haunting story of tragedy, strength, hope, courage and faith. Angelina Jolie (who I was never a fan of until I saw this picture) was amazing. She emoted the type of rage and anger that any mother would feel if this happened to her. But instead of just a regular movie "Changeling" is so much more. It was like watching a period motion picture straight out of the nineteen-twenties. The movie is absolutely riveting and fascinating. But it's also incredibly disturbing and haunting. Like a good book, this movie will get into your mind and cause you to think. I had to watch the DVD in 3 different sittings because it was so shocking. The scenes in the hospital were especially poignant because it was mixed with both tragedy and triumph. My favorite part was when Carol (Amy Ryan) gave that bigot doctor a good punch right in the face. John Malkovich was absolutely fantastic as Reverend Gustav Briegleb, playing totally against type. Although the movie is rather long (more than 2 hours) it does not drag on at all. This is the type of movie that is so tragic you will likely cry, yet there are even parts that may make you shed a tear of joy as well. Christine Collins never gives up faith because as she explained that was all she had. And as I watched her never for a moment did I think that I was watching the most famous actress in the world. Instead she was just a mother seeking justice.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Plodding, plodding, plodding.....
Added 11/21/2009
This is a 2 and a half hour movie...yet there is no reason in the world it needed to be this long. It's a pretty simple story. Cut an hour out of it and give it some "oomph" and it would have been fascinating.
By the end I really didn't care to see the finish...it didn't seem to matter to me at all what the final outcome was.
Here's the story:
One day in 1920's Los Angeles a single mother comes home from work one day and her son is gone. She frantically calls the police and they aren't very helpful. Luckily, a local minister with a radio show broadcasts her story, creates a stink about it. The police find her son and re-unite them. But it's not her son. But the police assure her she's just confused from the trauma etc. She goes to dentists, neighbours, teachers, etc. and they all agree with her; it's not her son. So she hounds the LAPD some more. They throw her in a mental ward to shut her up. Meanwhile, a serial killer (who killed 20+ children) is discovered, and her son is among the dead (perhaps). The minister gets a lawyer and storms the mental hospital, freeing the mother. They all expose what the LAPD did (the switcheroo with the kid to shut up the public about him gone missing when they should have been finding that serial killer, and locking her and other women up in a mental ward to shut them up). The LAPD captains lose their jobs, the serial killer is hanged. THE END.
That's it. That's basically all that happens in the film. It really shouldn't be that long.
It just drags and drags and drags. There's a "serial killer in court" scene, a "serial killer talks to the mother scene", and a "serial killer gets hanged scene" tacked onto the end...all for no reason at all. They could have just shown a 5 second clip of him being hanged and we would lose nothing from it. Same thing with the police captain trial. He loses his job and the courtroom all claps and cheers wildly. All of this can be cut. It's just all padded nonsense.
Also, they threw in some historical inaccuracies just for kicks. The serial killer actually killed the boys along with his mother; there were 4 boys killed, not 20+, no boys escaped from the ranch, etc.
I suggest just reading the wikipedia page and giving the movie a pass:
[...]
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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I'd give it 6 stars if I could
Added 11/18/2009
Wow, am I glad I gave THIS fairly lengthy film a chance! Clocking in at just over 2 hours and 20 minutes.
You know the story by now- a mother comes home to find that her son is missing. She does EVERYTHING in her power to try and find him, except, since the story takes place in the late 1920's, a young single woman has to face another challenge- trying to convince the local police her son is actually missing.
The cops are so crooked they actually think the mother isn't really concerned over her son and believes she WANTS her son to remain missing so she can start another life with possibly someone else, lol. That's just one of many irrational theories a certain officer at this police department had in mind.
What makes Changeling so unbelievably good is the writing. It's solid, it's brilliant, it's moving, and to be completely honest, it might even be perfection.
*Every single scene* is the very definition of captivating. Angelina Jolie gives us a performance I wasn't sure the girl even had in her. She plays the concerned/emotional mother role perfectly the entire time.
When the police try convincing her that a completely unrelated child is her own son, the story intensifies. When the police pretend Angelina's character has mental problems and doesn't even realize her own son is standing right in front of her which prompts the police to send her to a mental hospital for a lengthy visit, the story intensifies even *more*.
Guess what? That's only HALF of the things that makes this film so good. The other half of the story focuses on her son, or rather, without giving anything away, something really really horrible that her son was a part of. Unbelievable.
I HIGHLY recommend Changeling.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Jolie's Best Role By a Mile
Added 9/30/2009
This is Another masterpiece from Clint Eastwood. Jolie shines as Christine Collins who is the mother of a missing boy who disappears while she fulfills her obligations as a roller skate wearing telephone operator supervisor at a huge substation in LA. There are many twists to the story resulting from LAPD bugling yet another case in their long laundry list of mishandled crime investigations. Jolie plays the role of a hard working, intelligent, sensitive, unrelenting, hopeful mother who is tirelessly looking for her son. She becomes aided by John Malkovich who follows her case closely, using his bully pulpit to expose the LAPD for all of it's inconsistencies. Malkovich again shows why he's revered as the greatest character actor that ever donned a supporting role. All this starts out when a boy is retrieved from Illinois where he is used as a surrogate for her real son. Jolie is able to sell the fact that mothers are the ones that really know their sons. The LAPD takes the fact that Jolie's refusal to accept the boy as her son as being authentic to being delusional, shirking responsibility and "just plain nuts" Jolie then is "thrown" into the insane asylum where she undergoes many demeaning things. Jolie shows how smart and clever she can be in this role by assimilating herself into the asylum population while being conformant with the hospital doctors to prove she is not insane. If you watch carefully during the scenes where Christine Collins is restrained there is a day nurse that is played by Riki Lindhome who also plays the character of Mardell Fitzgerald in Eastwoods classic "Million Dollar Baby".
The movie takes a twist when Malkovich character exposes that the LAPD is having women incarcerated in a mental hospital when they are deemed public relations risks by the LAPD. Jeffery Donavan plays the stereotypical role of the Irish police captain who gets caught in the middle of a mess when it is found that citizens are wrongly put in the mental hospital and a second part of the mystery is uncovered when a runaway illegal alien from Canada reveals that he helped Gordon Northcutt in the mass murder of 20 boys at his ranch. This all comes to a head in a double trial where the mass murder and LAPD are both put on trial in a secretive proceeding put on a alternate docket to avoid press coverage. Jason Butler Harner's creepy portrayal of the ice cold mass murder Northcutt showed this deranged man, and his twisted attraction to Jolie's character which culminates to an unprecedented meeting between his character and Jolie's to finally confess to killing her son, However on her arrival he reneges on his deal to tell all, for fear of "going to hell". Jolie's interaction in this scene is electric when she repeatedly asks him "did you kill my son" over and over finally pressing herself to him nose to nose with gritted teeth. To me this was the epitome of great acting. I have this Tivoed on my system and highly recommend it be added to your DVD collection
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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