Here are the Mini Reviews from Cineman Syndicate for two movies opening on October 24, 2008:

PRIDE AND GLORY. Like the New York City cops it depicts, this alternately brutal and maudlin police drama has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Critically speaking, the devil wins; where the plot is concerned, the angel does, though just barely. Two brothers (Norton and Noah Emmerich) have followed their father (an excellent Jon Voight) onto the force along with their brother-in-law (Colin Farrell) who's crooked and out of control. The movie wrote itself. Type the premise into any screenwriting software and it'll spit out ninety-percent of the dialogue verbatim. That doesn't negate some fine acting, it just makes everything foreseeable. (R) FAIR DRAMA. Director - Gavin O'Connor; Lead - Edward Norton; Running Time - 126 minutes. 

CHANGELING. Clint Eastwood's six-year run churning out Oscar bait comes to an end with this handsome yet muddled and often hysterical fact-based drama about a single mother whose young son goes missing in Los Angeles in 1928. The tyke the police return to her months later is clearly an impostor and for pointing this out, she's put away in a snake-pit of an asylum. Jolie, whose big eyes can well-up with the best of them, is blameless and Eastwood's direction is no more literal than usual. Fault lies in a portentous screenplay that doesn't get a handle on the story and for pointing this out, she's put away in a snake-pit of an asylum. Jolie, whose big eyes can well-up with the best of them, is blameless and Eastwood's direction is no more literal than usual. Fault lies in a portentous screenplay that doesn't get a handle on the story and requires a multiplicity of endings. (R) FAIR DRAMA. Dirctor - Clint Eastwood; Lead - Angelina Jolie; Running Time - 140 minutes.  

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(Photo: John P. McCarthy, editor of Cineman Syndicate.)