Changeling being the kind of big-name Hollywood Oscar contender it is, he does manage to do something (though how much I'll leave to you). The last act, then, is the obligatory courtroom conclusion, replete with its own psychopath played by Jason Butler Harner in the movie's most riveting and expert performance. He's scary because he's teetering on the brink, and he could fall either way; we're never quite sure which he's leaning toward.
Since it has several intersecting plot lines (Christine's search for Walter, the trial, the LAPD corruption scandal), the movie uses several epilogues to sort them out, falling prey to Return of the King syndrome in that it seems to end about five times before it really ends. But if I'm making the film sound like some sort of huge, sprawling mess, that isn't my intent. It's a fairly by-the-numbers outing, with all of the expected beats and revelations, and proceeds for the most part in an unerringly straight line (when it clumsily diverts for a murder investigation, the audience finds its attention diverted as well). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though it prevents the film from having much of an impact besides a curious desire to see how it ends. I guess you could just Google the actual events if it comes to that.
A common criticism of Clint Eastwood's work as of late, probably beginning with 2003's Mystic River, is that in his attempt to play you like a piano, he mashes the keys so hard and forcefully that you end up out of tune. And it's true that Eastwood can't always resist the obvious string-pullers: Sean Penn's hysteria in Mystic River and Hilary Swank's cruel redneck family in Million Dollar Baby both come to mind.
Still, I have to admit that it's been working for me. Both of the aforementioned films had their flaws, as did 2006's Flags of Our Fathers, but you know what? Eastwood is such a stately, classy filmmaker that each one carried more than just a hint of prestige, maybe falling short in the end but doing an excellent job otherwise. With Letters from Iwo Jima, his Japanese-language counterpart to Flags, many agreed he had come close to making his masterpiece.
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