Changeling (2008)

It seems like there's a fascinating true story to be told, but this film just doesn't do it justice. It's presented in a "this happened, then this happened, then this" format, with very little flair. Although all of the actors are good and the material should be interesting (boy disappears and is "found" weeks later -- but the mother insists it's not her boy), it's somehow not.

I think that most of the problem lies in the fact that we should have wondered, along with the rest of the public, whether the mom was crazy. Instead, we find out almost immediately that she's not...so we're just left with police corruption and a constant persecution of the mother who won't play along, which gets old faster than you'd think.

C