Eastwood Ho!(Clint Eastwood)

Clint Eastwood's overlooked historical drama "Changeling" (Universal), which was greeted by mixed reviews in October, was a well-timed lesson in democratic revolt. Set in Los Angeles in 1928, it tells the true story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother whose young son, Walter (Gattlin Griffith), vanishes. Under pressure to solve the case, the police--led by the Machiavellian Chief James E. Davis (Colm Feore)--deliver to her, with great fanfare, a boy they call her son, but who, she insists, is not Walter. The heart of the drama lies in her attempt to press her claim against the L.A.P.D. in the face of Davis's ruthless efforts to silence her, and the help she gets from a firebrand minister (John Malkovich) who inveighs from the pulpit against police corruption, and from a prominent attorney (Geoffrey Pierson) who takes her case pro bono.

Eastwood, who was born in San Francisco in 1930 and went to college in Los Angeles, takes evident pleasure in meticulously re-creating the era and setting (it's a delight to see Christine, at work as a supervisor in a telephone central, gliding through her workspace on roller skates) as well as the restrained public demeanor typical of the times (Jolie herself keeps the histrionics to the essential minimum). Above all, Eastwood shows the people protesting against arrogant and unchecked authority, and shows ...