Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck), who is working his way up through his father-in-law’s law firm, has been given the important responsibility of convincing a dying and probably senile old man to shift responsibility for a hundred-million-dollar trust from a committee of friends and well-wishers to the willins shoulders of the law firm’s top lawyers. Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson) is an alcoholic, now enrolled in AA, who has managed to alienate everyone, including his wife. Both are on their way to court — Banek to counter a suit by the now deceased old man’s granddaughter, Gipson to convince a judge that he deserves to have partial custody of his children. They meet on a New York freeway — crunch. Damage is not severe, but Gipson insists on going through proper procedures, while Banek is in a hurry — such a hurry that he inadvertently leaves a critical document lying on the freeway next to an enraged Gipson. The rest of the film has to do with Banek’s attempts to convince Gipson to return the document and Gipson’s attempts to get even with Banek for costing him a crucial twenty minutes — and his children.

Probably the most outstanding thing about this film is that the trailer, as shown on TV, was totally misleading. Gipson is not nearly as innocent an individual as the trailer indicated, nor is Banek such an incorrigible sleazoid as one might expect after viewing the thirty-second introduction. In fact, one of the most attractive points about the film to me is that both men are allowed to redeem themselves before the conclusion and find ways to survive — happily — in a society that originally seemed determined to punish and/or corrupt them.

On the other hand, little more can be said for it than that. I’d recommend renting the tape or DVD when it comes out.