DHP (Movie)Review: The Changeling

dirtyharrysplace.com ^ | October 31st, 2008 | Dirty Harry

[Publius804]

DHP Review: The Changeling

Posted by Dirty Harry

Friday, October 31st, 2008

I’ll tweak this into a right and proper review this weekend but let me warn off some of you who might be considering a plunk down of ten bucks.

The Changeling lacks story focus and at two hours-twenty minutes is about 40 minutes too long. What opens as an intimate, period piece about a mother searching for her lost son slips a gear and goes all Bette Davis with an unexpected change of scope to a much broader palette involving a gruesome child murderer and police corruption.

This is a film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be and the attempts to mash a number of disparate elements into one creates an erratic narrative that never wants to end. You can sense Eastwood’s desire to cast a spell through score, picture and story, but every time you might settle in a scene goes on too long or the movie suddenly tells you it now wants to be about something else.

Angelina Jolie’s performance is head and shoulders above her much praised but overwrought work in A Mighty Heart. Here she’s subtle and natural and even manages to make her way through a number of melodramatic scenes with dignity intact.

[poobear]

I saw it yesterday afternoon. Where to start. Angelina was very good but I felt the there were too many scenes of her distraught and uncontrollable crying. She must have been exhausted after this movie. She was markedly thin!! She'll probably get an Oscar nomination.

Clint Eastwood had the dueling job of telling a story about a woman's tragedy of losing a son, police corruption, late 20’s and early 30’s mentality AND bring into the story of a serial killer. Having said that, not bad Clint. It's one for the CD collection.

my 2 cents

[Dr. Scarpetta]

When we go to the movies anymore, we look for entertainment and avoid any that are R-rated. This one sounds extremely depressing. I’m wondering how Angelina could be so thin after she just had twins.

[OldNavyVet]

“The Changeling lacks story focus and at two hours-twenty minutes is about 40 minutes too long. “

Whoever wrote the above words needs to have their head examined. True stories are not spec-script, 90 minute material; and I happened to walk out thinking the movie was perfect — and brilliantly focused.

The movie “The Changeling” is fascinating from beginning to end; and Angelina Jolie, Clint Eastwood — and the picture — will be Oscar winners.