Surprisingly incoherent and boring

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The atmosphere this movie create is very bad for the story they are trying to tell. The color contrast is very dull. The choice of music is off. The pacing of the story is bad. The progression of the story is very slow. So, over all it's just pathetic.

I have to make a plug for Vidangel here: just saw this streamed on VidAngel since it was rater R but it's a harrowing story I knew I nevertheless as a parent had to see and the 1928 case has similar elements to an Turns out, Gordon Northcott, the serial killer in the Wineville chicken murders, used some of the same tactics used by the pedophilia network today as chronicled in the Franklin cover-up case. According FBI agent Ted L. Gunderson, an adult survivor of satanist pedophilia in the Franklin Cover-up case named Paul Bonacci relayed to him that using a child to lure other children near playgrounds and other public areas to a kidnapper's car was one way his captors acquired children for abuse,torture, and murder. See Gunderson's YouTube video "Throw them in Jail for Life: Franklin Cover Up (1 of 3)", time index 1:54Also, Northcott's tactic of enlisting this same boy to help him kill, mutilate and dispose of the bodies of his victims is similar to Paul Bonacci's story as relayed in chapter 10 of his defense attorney John DeCamp's book, "The Franklin Cover-up":(The following is a graphic excerpt of survivor Paul Bonacci's account and is disturbing but nevertheless needs to be told as some of the perpetrators are still at large and this pedophile network is still active and includes dirty judges, adoption agency officials, and prominent government and business leaders, and law enforcement. This took place in an "area with big trees" about an hour's drive from Sacramento, California, in January of 1984. Again, be forewarned; you can't unread this teenage boy's account of abuse he gave to his lawyer but every parent needs to know about this:)"There was a cage with a boy in it who was not wearing anything. Nicholas and I were given these tarzan things to put around us and stuff. They told me to f--- the boy and stuff. At first I said no and they held a gun to my (genitals) and said do it or else lose them or something like that...We were told to f--- him and stuff and beat on him. I didn't try to hurt him. We were told to put our d---s in his mouth and stuff and sit on the boys p---- and stuff and they filmed it. We did this stuff to the boy for about 30 minutes or an hour when a man came in and kicked us...He grabbed the boy and started f---ing him and stuff...The boy was bleeding from his rectum and the men tossed him and me and stuff and put the boy right next to me and grabbed a gun and blew the boys head off."The boys blood was all over me and I started yelling and crying. The men grabbed Nicholas and I and forced us to lie down. They put the boy on top of Nicholas who was crying and they were putting Nicholas hands on the boys *ss. They put the boy on top of me and did the same thing. They then forced me to f--- the dead boy..they put a gun to our heads to make us do it. His blood was all over us. They made us kiss the boys lips and to eat him out. Then they made me do something I don't want to even write so I won't."After that the men grabbed Nicholas and drug him off screaming they put me up against a tree and put a gun to my head but fired into the air. I heard another shot from somewhere. I then saw the man who killed the boy drag him like a toy. Everything including when the men put the boy in a trunk was filmed. They took me with them and we went up in a plane. I saw the bag the boy was in. We went over a very thick brush area with a clearing in it. Over the clearing they dropped the boy. One said the men with the hoods would take care of the body for them.Ted Gunderson notes that Paul Bonacci saw some of the children in this pedophile ring auctioned off and shipped to D.C., New York and Paris for sex parties. See "Throw them in Jail for Life: Franklin Cover Up (2 of 3)" time index 5:39.

Let's see if I got this down correctly, it's Los Angeles in 1928, a young boy raised in a single working mother household disappears while he's left at home unattended. Months later, the police desperate to keep their decaying reputation intact because their so corrupt, lazily claims that they found her child. When she confronts them and tells them that's not her child, the lazy asses say she's making thing up. When she refuses to dismiss the case, the cops end up locking her away in an asylum. While this is happening, some graphic details involving another child abduction case catches their attention feeling that the misfired details to the story is more macabre than the one's been uncovered. Why would anyone want to see this exhibition of manipulative cheapness? All it delivers here is just showcasing children's lives being threatened. In a nutshell, all that this movie stems down to is fear-mongering and the audience is just simply biting into it. From what I gathered this story was based on actual events and yes I admit it's sad that these cases do happen. However, at the same time, the movie is so one-sided it's preposterous. Aside from that the events following the case lack in anything uplifting, energetic or eye-opening or any other terminology words that the Oscar hacks like to utilize. This movie fails miserably that can't be repaired. Angelina Jolie stars as single-mother Christine Collins. She works as a telephone operator and is one of the best workers on the staff. When she gets called into work one fine Saturday she leaves her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) at home by himself. When she returns home, the boy has vanished. Five months has passed, she gets the news that the cops have found a boy located in Illinois that suitably matches Walter's description. When she arrives that the station, she is surrounded by reporters and police who are just trying to conceal their corrupt reputation as they reveal the boy to her. When she sees the boy, she confirms that this child is not Walter. But the cops knowing they goofed still want Christine to take the child anyways. She then tries to take the case even further with the chief of police Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) that even though the proof that the boy they found was not Walter, he declares that Christine has serious mental disorders. And when she refuses to dismiss the case, the LAPD have her institutionalized to an asylum. While there she's befriended by fellow inmate named Carol Dexter (Amy Ryan) who instructs her on getting by in the loony bin. Meanwhile on her side, a local Reverend Gustav Brieglab (John Malkovich) who opposes corruption stands up to defends Christine's case while the token good cop Lester Ybarra (Michael Kelly) makes a grisly discovery involving a tip about a missing child who was abducted by crooked Canadian criminal. This movie clearly is every mother's worst nightmare. When we go to the cinemas, we want to be entertained and thrilled and to chase our troubles and insecurities away. So why do we need to watch a movie where real events like this one could happen to anyone at any time? What makes matters worse is that it is so surreal to actually think the cops even back then would be so corrupt and uncaring it makes this true story feel as though the production never once took this subject matter very seriously. It just never felt convincing. Sure director Clint Eastwood's intentions were good and Jolie did quite well in her respected role and had the emotions accurate in how any mother would react when faced in this dire situation. But the film quite insufferable and very painful to watch. When the final credits roll, there was no justice that truly prevailed. No feel-good moments were delivered here and it took a ton of excruciating frustrations for common sense to get through. And then some important details that could've been utilized to good effect were thrown out the window. Like why didn't they question the neighbours who were checking up upon Walter? That could've been a potential lead, but it was neglected because common sense was nowhere to be found. After all is said and done, "Changeling" is two hours and twenty minutes of torturous manipulation that took a serious story and made very little progression to make this story enthralling.

As I sat down to write this review I was going to give this a 9. I started my mental list of issues with this film. I couldn't find one issue against this film and not one. It's very hard for me to score a ten (except Gone With the Wind), I rate on the low end generally. So here's what I was thinkingCinematography- Check Costumes-check Casting- check, Plot- check, direction-check, Acting-check Strong emotions without being manipulative - checkWhen I go to the cinema I have a choice - a movie or a film. With this I expected a movie, I ended up seeing a film. This should be shown in film courses. It reminds me of Chinatown. It transports you to the place where the screen takes you, and when characters cry their makeup runs.