Very good movie. Not perfect. Not even outstanding. But good.

Rating: 8/10 (21 November 2008)

Very good movie. Not perfect. Not even outstanding. But good.
This is from someone who thinks Eastwood isn't that great a director and Jolie is a grade C actress. But both do a mostly credible job here. I thought the guy who plays the bad guy (the really bad guy, not the cop) was exceptionally convincing, and I'm surprised he hasn't gotten more attention for the role. John Malkovitch is annoying as a thoroughly UNconvincing political-activist-masquerading-as-Protestant-preacher. They should have just had him play contemporary actor John Malkovitch; it would have been the same performance. The kid who plays the protagonist's alleged son is even more annoying, because he's so thoroughly unlikeable and wicked. The corrupt cop isn't exactly bad from an acting point of view, but he lends a definite sense of conscious malice to a role that is apparently supposed to be explained by thoughtlessness and inattention. I was under the distinct impression throughout the whole movie that he pretty much knew the kid was a phony and just didn't care.
Too many unsympathetic (dont even get me started on that doctor) and hard-to-swallow characters sully this otherwise absorbing movie. Kind of in the same way most peoples' opinion of Silence of the Lambs is significantly lower today than it was when they first saw it, I predict people's opinions about Changeling will sour over time. The characterizations just don't, for the most part, ring completely true.