Changeling (2008) ****

Changeling is about one woman's journey through hell. No, it's not the fire and brimstone and pitchforks and horns kind of hell, it's the personal hell that life has to journey through sometimes. The film follows Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother in 1928 Los Angeles whose son disappears one day without a trace. Five months pass when the police inform her that they have found her son in DeKalb, Illinois and he'll be home on the train. What should be a joyous celebration is shattered when she meets the boy and realizes that he is not her son. The problem is that the LAPD can not have another embarrassment on their hands and practically force her to take the child home. As she pushes the issue more and more the police decide to throw her in the county psychopathic hospital because she won't accept the boy as her own.

Changeling is based on a true story that is really a heart wretcher. Mothers losing children always are, but with the added antagonist of the police department itself it becomes and even greater loss because, as she says in the film, they are wating precious time to investigate where her true son really is. You can almost hear the clock ticking in the background as the LAPD covers their own mistakes instead of doing their sworn duty. Jolie, who is usually hit or miss with me, is great in this role and if she would skip the crap movies she tends to do, would probably be more than tabloid meat. John Malkovich plays the pastor who is out to expose the LAPD for the corrupt organization that it is from his radio pulpit, helping Christine expose the many failures they committed while "searching" for her son.

Clint Eastwood directs the film just as he directs his other films. There's no panache. Eastwood's films tend to be straightforward pieces that don't over blow camera shots and zooms. His films are precision, which succeeds and fails depending on the material. I don't know what kind of movie making hypnotics he's done but he's been impressive in the last half of the decade. It's hard to believe that Clint Eastwood's work can stand up to John Wayne AND John Ford. Changeling represents another feather in the cowboy hat of Clint Eastwood. It's not the greatest of his career, but it's one of his best accomplishments.