Changing Lanes (2002)

·      Starring: Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, Toni Collette, Syndney Pollack, William Hurt, Amanda Peet

·      Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment

·      Video: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

·      Audio: English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0, French DD 2.0

·      Subtitles: English, English Closed Captions

·      Extras: Audio Commentary with Director Roger Michell, The Making of Changing Lanes Featurette, A Writer's Perspective Featurette, Two Deleted Scenes, One Extended Scene, Theatrical Trailer

·      Length: 98 minutes

·      Rating: ****

Young attorney Gavin Banek has been assigned the task of filing crucial paperwork with the court on behalf of the large law firm where he works.  Doyle Gipson is a down-on-his-luck father of two who is on his way to court for a hearing to determine his parental rights with regard to his children.  These two perfect strangers collide on the freeway as they are making their way to their respective appointments.  The two men have a disagreement as to the proper procedure for resolving their auto accident and Gavin leaves Doyle stranded at the scene.  The accident precipitates both having unsuccessful court appearances and consequently each then blames the other as the reason for the poor results.  As their angers rise, the two men engage in a systematic effort to destroy the other's life.

The video quality of this DVD is excellent.  Images are crisp and colors are accurate with fully saturated hues.  There is solid contrast and deep black levels.  Picture defect mastering is perfect with no major flaws or digital compression artifacts.

The overall audio quality is above average with the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track serving as the basis for this review.  The soundtrack mix predominantly favors the forward channels.  Dialogue is clean and firmly anchored in the center channel.  The surround channels are mostly subdued and are used for both ambient sound effects and the music score.  Tactile sound effects are present in about one quarter of the DVD's chapters.  The tactile effects are in the form of light to moderate impacts and they originate both from sound effects and the music score.

Reference equipment used for this review: [Video projector- Studio Experience Cinema 17SF; Projection screen- Da-Lite 106 Da-Snap; DVD player- Pioneer Elite DV-37; A/V Receiver- Sherwood Newcastle R-963T; Speakers- BIC DV62si mains, DV62CLRs center, Adatto DV52si rears, D1210R subwoofer; Tactile Transducers- Clark Synthesis TST 329 Gold; Cables and Wires- Bettercables.com]