Changing Lanes Movie Essay
The ethical dilemmas in this movie seem surreal at times, but when I really thought about them, I came to the conclusion that they really could happen. I found myself trying to predict the main characters’, Doyle Gipson (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and Gavin Banek (played by Ben Affleck), next moves based on the information I knew about them, and the scary thing was that I got most of the predictions correct. My opinion of both main characters changed several times throughout the movie. In writing this paper I hope to discuss the ethical mistakes of the main characters, and what my final opinions were of them both.
When the movie begins, it seems as if both characters are possible protagonists due to the brief background the movie gives of both men, but it suddenly changes and seems to show Gipson as the protagonist as Banek becomes the antagonist. It almost makes me sick to think that this entire catastrophe of a day could have been avoided if Banek would have exchanged information with Gipson and given him a ride to the same courthouse he was going to. However, Banek leaves the scene of an accident with Gipson, starting this cruel chain of events in motion.
We next see Banek, who is a lawyer, in court and he quickly realizes that he accidentally left an important document at the accident scene and Gipson has picked it up, not knowing what it is. The rest of the movie is Banek’s frantic search for the document, which will keep him and his law partners out of jail, and Gipson’s vendetta to get back at Banek for many different things Banek does to him.
Interestingly, both Banek and Gipson are given many opportunities to redeem themselves by doing the right thing, but each time they choose to escalate the fight. Instead of being humble and dropping the matter, they each do incredibly cruel things to one another. Banek hires a hit man of sorts to erase Gipson’s credit, making him bankrupt. Gipson, at the time, is trying to keep his wife from taking his children and moving across the country to get away from him. Gipson has arranged to buy a house where his wife and the boys can live, but he needs to make it to the court hearing when the accident occurs. The computer fraud that Banek imposes keeps Gipson from getting the house.
When he realizes Banek is the one who set him up, Gipson decides to get even with Banek by removing the lug nuts from his car, and Banek has a wreck that almost costs him his life. Banek gets even by telling his boys’ school that he is coming to take them away and then he pages Gipson, telling him his boys have been hurt. Gipson shows up at the school only to be arrested and sent to jail. There he is confronted by his wife, who tells him she is moving to Oregon to get away from him and he will never see his boys again.
Gipson’s friend, who is a recovering alcoholic and attends AA meetings with Gipson, bails him out and tells Gipson that his drug of choice is not alcohol. Gipson’s drug of choice is chaos. Gipson cannot go through life without chaos.
In the meantime, Banek has second thoughts about all of the trouble he has created for Gipson and he sets out to make things right by turning himself in. His partners inform him that is not needed because they have forged a new document that replaced the one he lost and they have gotten him off the hook.
This is where the unrealistic ending takes place. A Wall Street lawyer, Banek, decides he has been dishonest and he is going to make things right. As he is eating dinner with his in-laws and his wife, he shows them the original document, which he has just obtained from Gipson, and says he is going to turn the partners in if they do not start acting more honest.
I have left several different ethical dilemmas from this paper that occurred in the movie. I honestly would not have enough room to write about all of them in a paper that is supposed to be around two pages. It is revealed at the beginning of the movie that Banek has cheated on his wife with an employee from his office. Gipson has an uncontrollable temper that causes him to beat up two men outside of a bar.
They both respond differently when something tragic happens to them. Banek, while truly trying to be honest, uses his naivety to mask over his sins, and when that does not work, he just tries to skirt around the law, committing little white lies and breaking the law only slightly, in his view. When he hires the hit man, he decides that he does not want kill Gipson. He only wants to “get his attention.” This is his view of right and wrong.
Gipson, on the other hand, has a problem controlling his anger physically. He wants to hurt people who hurt him, physically and verbally. The physical victims of Gipson are two drunks outside of a bar, Banek while driving his car when it loses a tire, and a computer monitor in his bank. He also yells uncontrollably at several people.
In the end, each character becomes a tragic hero. Banek goes to talk to Gipson’s wife who ends up taking Gipson back because of the conversation with Banek, and then Banek gets his father-in-law, who is one of the partners at the law firm Banek works at, to give back the $3 million that they swindled from a local charity. The ending only made me wonder how many Wall Street lawyers were laughing their heads off after seeing how it ended. If this movie would have really happened, I predict that Gipson would have ended up dead, or in prison for killing Banek. Banek, if not murdered, would have gone on with his life, not concerned in any way with the people he had to step on to get farther up his ladder. I hope I am wrong about the nature of man, especially men who work on Wall Street.
