Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Kingslaay Changeling was a captivating and well made film. Angelina Jolie playing a desperate and frustrated mother gives a stellar performance as she looks for her missing son. The film also cast light on the dark past when the police and authorities could often be negligent in their duties and try to cover up their mistakes. This thriller keeps you engaged from start to finish as the audience and Christine Collins (Jolie) search for the truth. Based on real life events viewers can relate to the plight as a woman searches for her son and justice. The supporting cast deliver great performances, Angelina Jolie should have been awarded the best actress Oscar for her great performance. This film is definitely recommended for those who enjoy a well made thriller that is actually based on historic events.

rupanathsivakumar In 1928 a mother leaves to work and comes home only to find her son missing. She calls the cops but they say they can't take any action until been at least 24 hours. They come the next morning, eventually. 5 moths later, they find a boy who is not the son and this is about her fight to find him and with the authorities who keep denying that he isn't the boy.

eric262003 Let's see if I got this down correctly, it's Los Angeles in 1928, a young boy raised in a single working mother household disappears while he's left at home unattended. Months later, the police desperate to keep their decaying reputation intact because their so corrupt, lazily claims that they found her child. When she confronts them and tells them that's not her child, the lazy asses say she's making thing up. When she refuses to dismiss the case, the cops end up locking her away in an asylum. While this is happening, some graphic details involving another child abduction case catches their attention feeling that the misfired details to the story is more macabre than the one's been uncovered. Why would anyone want to see this exhibition of manipulative cheapness? All it delivers here is just showcasing children's lives being threatened. In a nutshell, all that this movie stems down to is fear-mongering and the audience is just simply biting into it. From what I gathered this story was based on actual events and yes I admit it's sad that these cases do happen. However, at the same time, the movie is so one-sided it's preposterous. Aside from that the events following the case lack in anything uplifting, energetic or eye-opening or any other terminology words that the Oscar hacks like to utilize. This movie fails miserably that can't be repaired. Angelina Jolie stars as single-mother Christine Collins. She works as a telephone operator and is one of the best workers on the staff. When she gets called into work one fine Saturday she leaves her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) at home by himself. When she returns home, the boy has vanished. Five months has passed, she gets the news that the cops have found a boy located in Illinois that suitably matches Walter's description. When she arrives that the station, she is surrounded by reporters and police who are just trying to conceal their corrupt reputation as they reveal the boy to her. When she sees the boy, she confirms that this child is not Walter. But the cops knowing they goofed still want Christine to take the child anyways. She then tries to take the case even further with the chief of police Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) that even though the proof that the boy they found was not Walter, he declares that Christine has serious mental disorders. And when she refuses to dismiss the case, the LAPD have her institutionalized to an asylum. While there she's befriended by fellow inmate named Carol Dexter (Amy Ryan) who instructs her on getting by in the loony bin. Meanwhile on her side, a local Reverend Gustav Brieglab (John Malkovich) who opposes corruption stands up to defends Christine's case while the token good cop Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) makes a grisly discovery involving a tip about a missing child who was abducted by crooked Canadian criminal. This movie clearly is every mother's worst nightmare. When we go to the cinemas, we want to be entertained and thrilled and to chase our troubles and insecurities away. So why do we need to watch a movie where real events like this one could happen to anyone at any time? What makes matters worse is that it is so surreal to actually think the cops even back then would be so corrupt and uncaring it makes this true story feel as though the production never once took this subject matter very seriously. It just never felt convincing. Sure director Clint Eastwood's intentions were good and Jolie did quite well in her respected role and had the emotions accurate in how any mother would react when faced in this dire situation. But the film quite insufferable and very painful to watch. When the final credits roll, there was no justice that truly prevailed. No feel-good moments were delivered here and it took a ton of excruciating frustrations for common sense to get through. And then some important details that could've been utilized to good effect were thrown out the window. Like why didn't they question the neighbours who were checking up upon Walter? That could've been a potential lead, but it was neglected because common sense was nowhere to be found. After all is said and done, "Changeling" is two hours and twenty minutes of torturous manipulation that took a serious story and made very little progression to make this story enthralling.

CheshireCatsGrin As I sat down to write this review I was going to give this a 9. I started my mental list of issues with this film. I couldn't find one issue against this film and not one. It's very hard for me to score a ten (except Gone With the Wind), I rate on the low end generally. So here's what I was thinkingCinematography- Check Costumes-check Casting- check, Plot- check, direction-check, Acting-check Strong emotions without being manipulative - checkWhen I go to the cinema I have a choice - a movie or a film. With this I expected a movie, I ended up seeing a film. This should be shown in film courses. It reminds me of Chinatown. It transports you to the place where the screen takes you, and when characters cry their makeup runs.