Review in a Hurry: A gut-churning true story—about a missing boy and a look-alike runaway forced on his mother by police—is rendered flat by Angelina Jolie's sedated performance and an unfocused script from J. Michael Straczynski.
The Bigger Picture: Christine Collins (a skeletal Jolie), a single mom in 1920s Los Angeles, returns home from work to find her son Walter missing. Her ordeal only gets worse when the LAPD, under pressure from a crusading radio preacher (John Malkovich) claims to have solved the case, handing her a runaway from Illinois who looks like and claims to be Walter.
Unwilling to accept a substitute son, Collins is committed to an insane asylum by the cops when she gets inconvenient. That should be enough to enrage anyone, but Jolie turns Collins into a plaster saint. She rarely raises her voice, even at the most vicious abuse from a corrupt police captain and sadistic medical staff.
Maybe the script just didn't give her enough to do. It skips around the real-life events, leaving big gaps. It might have been more interesting, dramatically, if we were allowed to doubt Collins' sanity—or if she was ever seen to doubt herself. But the movie avoids any nuance or shading in Collins. It starts in black-and-white, and that's where it ends.
The 180—a Second Opinion: The film is beautifully shot and directed (it's Clint Eastwood, after all). And the supporting cast shines, especially in the smaller roles, like Michael Kelly as the one honest copper and Geoffrey Pierson as Collins' attorney.