The Good

Clint Eastwood shows why he is one of the true cinematic masters working today.

The Bad

Ultimately this film feels cold.In 1928, Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) son disappeared from her life. Five months later, the Los Angeles Police Department return the child to her. Collins soon realizes that this isn't her son. What follows is an amazing story that examines how society looks at women and single mothers. What might seem like an open and shut case is anything but that in Changeling, the second film in 2008 from Clint Eastwood. While this movie sometimes plays at an overly long 2 hours and 22 minutes, what it manages to accomplish is quite interesting. The central theme of the film is how far someone might go to find the truth. However, what do you do when the truth is the only thing you can count on and even that has a way of being twisted?

Features

Partners In Crime

In this high-definition featurette we get to see how this movie came about from the ground up. Also, it looks at the relationship between Eastwood and Jolie and how this collaboration worked. I liked the extra bit of information that this gave us. I also think that this extra feature looked really well composed. It was rich and textured and that is certainly saying something in regards to HD video. Fans of the director and star will certainly enjoy this.

The Common Thread

Blu-Ray Exclusive U-Control Features

While watching the movie users can access the Los Angeles: Then and Now featurette as well as the Archives featurette. These are both well done, but I can't really understand why someone would want to interrupt this movie in order to view them. Rather, they seem like the sort of supplementals that a viewer would watch after screening Changeling s they might have.

Video

1080p - High Definition Widescreen 2.40:1 - 1080i/p High-Definition. This movie looked really good. That is the thing that really struck me. It is amazing that Clint Eastwood has such a command of this sort of material. I honestly felt at times like I was watching a movie from 1928. The images are well composed and all of this comes together really nicely in the Blu-ray format. I feel that if I watched this movie in Standard Definition I wouldn't get as much out of the experience. This film looks really nice here both in how it was shot and how it was brought to home video.

Audio

English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French DTS 5.1 - English Dolby Digital 2.0. Subtitled in English, Spanish and French. The audio on this movie was both booming at times and very subtle and quiet at others. This presented a very dynamic range and I think it makes Changeling a must have in the Blu-ray collection. One might question why I would say that about a film that I am not 100% raving about, but I think on a purely technical this Blu-ray disc serves as a terrific vehicle to both test out and show off your player and set-up.

Package

A portrait-like image of Jolie is shown on this brown front cover. The back gives users a description of this film, some images, and a description of the High-Def and U-Control Features on this release. Below all of that is a credits list and technical specs. While not amazing packaging it gets the job done.

Final Word

I didn't see this movie in the theater so I was excited to get to screen it on Blu-ray disc. This movie was really good but between that and Eastwood's other film, Gran Turino, I liked the latter better. Don't misunderstand me, these are two very different films, which only serve to underscore how amazingly talented Eastwood is, but I just think that Gran Turino had a little more heart than Changeling. This film is certainly a period piece and too much of it felt like it was designed for Angelina Jolie to have a bunch of "movie moments." While none of this is that terrible (as one can think of worse people to have to look at) I personally think the gritty feel of Turino had more to offer.

All in all Changeling is a very well made, well done film, I just feel it is a tad too tightly crafted for my viewing tastes.