Changeling movie review & film summary (2008)
If her "rediscovered son" was a poster boy for the cops, her disappearance became the cause of an early radio preacher named the Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who had been thundering against police corruption. Meanwhile, a determined detective named Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) was led to the buried bodies of 20 young boys on an isolated chicken ranch outside Winesville, Calif.
Eastwood's telling of this story isn't structured as a thriller, but as an uncoiling of outrage. It is clear that the leaders of the LAPD serve and protect one thing: its own tarnished reputation. Collins joins many other female prisoners whose only crime was to annoy a cop. The institution drugs them, performs shock treatment, punishes any protest. Mental illness is treated as a crime. This is all, as the film observes, based on a true story.
Eastwood is one of the finest directors now at work. I often say I'm mad at Fassbinder for dying at 38 and denying us decades of his films. In a way, I'm also mad at Eastwood for not directing his first film until he was 41. We could not do without his work as an actor. But most of his greatest films as a director have come after "retirement age." Some directors start young and get tired. Eastwood is only gathering steam.
"Changeling" displays the directness and economy of his mentor, Don Siegel. It has not a single unnecessary stylistic flourish. No contrived dramatics. No shocking stunts. A score (by Eastwood) that doesn't underline but observes. The film simply tells its relentless story and rubs the LAPD's face in it. This is the story of an administration that directed from the top down to lie, cheat, torture, extract false confessions and serve to protect its image. In a way, it is prophetic.
The Los Angeles Police Department, perhaps in part because it is unlucky enough to exist in Los Angeles, has often had a dark image in recent movies. Consider "L.A. Confidential," "Training Day," "Lakeview Terrace." Lots of movies involve corrupt cops, but no city's police department has been as dramatically portrayed. Yes, there are hero cops, but they're mavericks. Dirty Harry, for all his problems, might have admired this movie.
Jolie, Malkovich and Geoff Pierson, as a lawyer who takes Collins' case before the Police Board, are very good at what they do very well. The film's most riveting performance is by Jason Butler Harner as the murderous Gordon Northcott. The character could not be adequately described on the page. Harner's mesmerizing performance brings him to sinister life as a self-pitying weasel specializing in smarmy phony charm. He doesn't play a sick killer. He embodies one.
