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Taking Lives Angelina Jolie straps on Ashley Judd's gun
I enjoy a serial killer thriller film, I always have. I don't mind the usually implausible way the killer seems to taunt the inevitable FBI agent as, usually she, is chasing him. That's why even though there are a ton of movies coming out over the next few weeks I remained curious about this one.
I'd hoped that they would try to do something different with this film instead of just churning out another one of those Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman stories. Well they didn't do that because many of those stories are better than this film.
Angelina Jolie stars as an FBI agent with a special talent for catching serial killers. She is called to Montreal to help the locals catch a killer who has been murdering loner type victims and living there lives for a time before moving on to another victim. When we first meet Jolie's character she is laying in the grave of a recent victim supposedly trying to put herself into the mind of the victim looking for details from their perspective. This is a great character quirk that isn't developed enough in the film.
Let the old clichés begin....
(1) The two local detectives in charge of the case don't, of course, want her around. Oliver Martinez is at his most boring throughout the film as the cop who reluctantly has to work with her. Could a cop just one time put concern for victims in front of his ego and appreciate the help of an expert?
(2) A witness to one of the murders comes forward to help the police and he (played by Ethan Hawke) of course begins to fall for Jolie's character and she reciprocates leading to one of the most awkward unbelievable sex scenes I've seen in quite some time. Look I'm a strapping guy. I have no problem with female nudity but if your gonna do it, do it for a good movie, or at least a believable sex scene! Otherwise Jolie may as well do those "Up All Night" movies they show on cable. How many times are we gonna see guys really go at it with a girl on screen while never even unbuttoning his pants let alone dropping them! I don't have any hidden desire to see Ethan Hawke's backside but at least it would have made the scene more believable.
End of clichés I feel I need to mention (there are more believe me!)
The film is full of some of the most obvious, and barely coherent to the plot as far as evidence goes, plot twists I've seen in years. I'm not one of these guys who sits in the theater and works a mystery movie like a puzzle. I just try to lose myself in the story. So the fact that I knew who the killer was within the first twenty minutes of the movie says something really bad about this one. The attempted misdirects used to throw me off the trail are done in such a sloppy way that they just make it more obvious who the killer is.
On the up side there are a few good scares in the movie and some creepiness at a few fleeting moments. Also the film had a first rate cast and I found Jolie, Hawke, and Gena Rowlands to service their parts well. The problem they had is that their characters had very little depth. They were there to help the story progress and that's it. I quite liked the oversaturated look at the beginning of the film. I wish they had stuck with a more stylized feel for the rest of the film but unfortunately after the first few minutes the film switches gears to a more typical dark murder mystery look.
Had the filmmakers focused on developing Jolie's character more and giving the character some more time to display this quirky obsession with death that's just hinted to and allowed Rowlands more screen time to share more about the history of her family and the twins of whom one she believes is the killer Taking Lives could have been something more memorable.
Rowlands and Kiefer Sutherland are totally wasted in this film. If you're into this type of story Jolie does offer something different (other than her exposed breast) to what we usually see from Ashley Judd. She seems a little darker, a little more "Goth" which is excellent for this kind of film if they had just played up on it more! What should have been, at least in concept a return to Silence of the Lambs and Seven, is more lik Along came a Spider with a breast and no Morgan Freeman. You ca decide for yourself if that's enough but for me, I expected more and should have gotten it.
4/10
-Stephen Lackey |
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Taking Lives Directed by D.J. Caruso Starring Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Gena Rowlands, Kiefer Sutherland Review: 4/10
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