Please note: Entries about media reviewed in this blog are written from the perspective that the reader has already seen the work in question and desires further commentary or explanation. Plot twists and endings will sometimes be examined.
We are introduced to our two main protagonists in some brief scenes showing them getting ready for big events. Both men are at important junctures in their lives, although they are very different people. Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck in possibly his best role) is a Wall Street lawyer making a speech praising a recently deceased business man. Outside when he attempts to speak with the dead man's daughter we see only hatred for him in her words; Banek has obtained a power of appointment from the man on his deathbed, putting his foundation in the hands of Banek's firm, and she is suing him over it - stating the old man didn't know what he signed. Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) has just put down the money on a small house, hoping it'll be enough to sway his wife to reconciliation; she is considering moving out of state and taking their two young boys with her and he is desperate to prevent that. Shortly after closing the discussion on the house, we see him speaking out in jubilation at an AA meeting, happy at his prospects of succeeding with this piece in place.
The aforementioned accident takes place with both men on their way to court: Banek on his way to present documents (most importantly to show the power of appointment), Gipson to make his case to a judge in a hearing for why his wife shouldn't be allowed to take his boys away from him. Both men are in a hurry and running late and, as mentioned earlier, neither is entirely to blame for the collision. The accident leaves incongruent results, however, as Gipson's car is immobilized, but Banek's isn't. Faced with becoming even more late, Banek makes things worse by not "doing this the right way" (to use Gipson's words) and simply writing a blank check believing that will make the problem go away so he can get on with his day. He completely dismisses the idea that Gipson could have something important to do as well, and leaves him, against his protests, stranded on the freeway alone, saying only "Better luck next time!" as he rides off.
At the courthouse, Banek arrives, a little, but not too late to present his papers, only to discover he doesn't have the power of appointment document. In his haste to flee the scene of the accident, he's left it with Gipson. Though copies of it exist, he's told by the judge that the actual copy with the real signature is needed, and that he might even face criminal charges if it isn't produced. Gipson, on the other hand, arrives in court late and discovers, in his absence, he has lost, even despite his best efforts and obtaining a house. It gets me how the movie up to this point alone could actually have made an interesting short film (albeit one with a very grim and dismal outlook on things). It's aggravating to watch in many ways (especially given what occurs later), and though it isn't stated outright in the film, what makes it all the worse, is that I think both men were actually on their way to the same courthouse and if so, could've bypassed all the subsequent problems.Banek is having a sort of crisis of conscience. He's been having an affair with his assistant (Toni Collette), which he feels guilty about. He knows on a certain level that what he did to obtain the power of appointment was unethical, that the dying man didn't know what he was signing. He knows on some level too, we sense, that his bosses, headed by his father-in-law Delano (Sydney Pollack), have very selfish desires for the non-profit foundation they'll gain with this power of appointment. He sets off a fire alarm to get Delano (and everyone else in the office) out of the building so he can see what they have planned for it and (in a scene I whose composure I really enjoyed), ends with him and his assistant huddled together outside knowing he is neck deep in an absolute mess - his bosses do indeed plan to rob the newly acquired non-profit.
Faced with criminal charges on the one hand and unethical choices on the other, Banek is challenged by Gipson who taunts him with the words "Better luck next time!" on a page from the power of appointment that he faxes to Banek. Gipson is very much a hot-headed character, who acts and reacts in absolute anger without thought sometimes. In his sadness and anger, he at one point enters a bar and orders a drink (breaking his AA oath), and then provokes a fight without even taking a drink. The words "Two wrongs don't make a right" would likely be answered by him with "Yeah, but they make it even", and Gipson isn't the type who just gets mad, he gets even. Banek responds to the taunt by finding a hacker to shut down Gipson's credit, right in the midst of his attempts to finance a house.Then comes an absolutely stunning scene in a restaurant with Amanda Peet as Banek's wife as she quietly tells him of an affair her father had that her mother knew about, but didn't respond to. "She felt that it would be unfair to criticize a man for cheating while living comfortably off of him, when his whole job was to basically to be a cheater in business." She tells him that she knows of his affair with his assistant and his troubles with the document. "I could've married an honest man, but I didn't. I married a Wall Street lawyer, a man like my father... Men like him, at his level of the game... What do you think the laws mean to men like him? It's a dog eat dog world, and you have to do what you have to to survive. We're on the edge, can you come out there and live there with me?" Banek is moved by what she has to say until she reveals that the whole conversation has been move by her father to convince him to go along, and the meeting ends unresolved.
As the day goes on, things escalate to even more extreme lows. After it looks like Gipson will cooperate with him, Banek discovers it's not so easy to turn a man's credit back on as it is off. In retaliation, Gipson loosens a tire on Banek's car and the resulting accident, which nearly kills him, leaves him stranded on the freeway (shellshocked he walks right past where Gipson's car still rests on the exit divide). Banek then sets up a situation that ends with Gipson being dragged away from his children in tears from their school, scared for their safety.Gipson's wife (Kim Staunton) meets him at the holding cells. We sense that she does still love and care for him despite the decisions she appears poised to make. For all her disappointment, she has shown some moments of understanding and even a willingness to give him a second chance a few times throughout the day. Though she has been legally given the power to leave him, it has until this point in the film remained a question as to whether she would or not. As she speaks to him through the iron bars, however, there is nothing but seething anger at him. "Whatever drama you've gotten yourself into, it's just the kind of thing that always happens to you! And it never happens to me unless I'm in your field of gravity!" He gets no sympathy from his AA sponsor (William Hurt) either, when he shows up to bail him out and hears his excuses. "What you learned today is that, this, what you see, everything around us that we live in is held in place by a fragile pact not to go completely bat shit!!! So what if you didn't have a drink?! You broke the covenant! Booze was never your choice of drug anyways, you're addicted to chaos!"
The day ends quietly with a couple of conversations. First between Banek and Delano, who went ahead and forged a new power of appointment document and submitted it without Banek's knowledge. When questioned about how he can live with such sickening behavior, Delano even goes so far as to say he actually believes he does more good than bad. Then comes a final conversation in Banek's office between him and Gipson, after a day in which the two men have completely wrecked each other's lives. There isn't a whole bunch of yelling like one might expect of such a confrontation, instead it is quiet and reflective and we can see from their faces, hear from their voices that both men are completely ashamed of themselves, more than mad at each other. In a strange parable, Baneck mulls over the idea that he's lost whatever chance there might once have been to turn around and live an honest profession, but instead has chosen to wade deeper and deeper into murkier waters. "You go deeper into the ocean and it's freezing and painful and there's a beautiful girl on the shore looking at you and you just know if you went back out and left with her instead you'd live happily together forever, but you don't... instead you keep going into the water... today... today is that girl..." Gipson returns Baneck's document and leaves, well aware of what the other man has lost as well as himself.
The conclusion to the story comes when Banek shows Delano the document at dinner later that night and tells him that if he doesn't straighten out and allow the non-profit foundation to keep its money, he's going to show the real document to a judge exposing Delano's as a fake. He also tells him that he intends to help Gipson buy a house for his family, showing his desire to reconcile what he's done. He turns to his wife and says simply: "I found my edge, can you come here and live here with me?"* * *
Lanes and lines and edges and boundaries figure very prominently into the symbolism of this tale. Both men will find their limits over the course of the film and if the viewer watches carefully, so too will they through these characters and events. What could've been a very depressing end is turned around somewhat by the characters' ultimate decisions to do what they have to to make things right. What could've felt like a very tacked on sort of happy ending is instead saved by the realization that these men would very much have a reason to begin behaving in a better manner towards one another.
How much of what occurred was unavoidable? Could it have been turned around right from the very start? Couldn't it have been stopped at any point along the way by simply stopping to apologize or accepting the other man's apology? I mentioned earlier the frustration that occurs at the very idea that the two men might even have been going to the same place (a piece of irony I think was intentionally placed in the story to heighten the inanity of it all). The Burkean cycle of guilt and shame says that there are only two ways we can respond to something bad happening, something that leaves us feeling guilty in one sense or another. Pretty much every response fits under either blame or mortification. Blaming or scapegoating others alleviates the shame we feel by allowing us to put it on someone else. Mortification on the other hand is an act of self reproach, asking oneself how they could behave differently to resolve things. One can see from this film exactly which choice is being taken again and again and how such choices only seem to come back around again and again as each man tries to even the score.
Perhaps the two men could've gone the whole day without the accident occurring, but what then? The story shows us clearly what problems these men both have in their lives even before the events we see take place. If Banek had made it to court on time and presented his papers without a hitch, he might just have continued down the path he was already going, sweeping his conscience to the back of his head and slowly becoming more like the cheats his father-in-law resembles. And what if Gipson had convinced his wife to stay, without the problems he encountered? Given his alcoholism and tendency to flip out and do something crazy, it's every bit as likely he'd have continued to screw up until he did so big and irreversibly sometime in the future. It strikes me that for all the negative things we watch occur, the story presented in this film is in reality one of hope, given the possibility we actually learn from our mistakes. It's the kind of film that can actually make a difference on our lives if we watch it carefully, observe, and learn from the mistakes we see onscreen.
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