Taking Lives Review
by Andy Keast (arthistoryguy AT aol DOT com)March 24th, 2004
Taking Lives (2004): * out of ****
Directed by D.J. Caruso. Screenplay by Jon Bokenkamp, based on a novel by Michael Pye. Starring Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Gena Rowlands, Olivier Martinez and Tchéky Karyo.
by Andy Keast
"Taking Lives" is a detective thriller that goes from mediocre to poisonously bad very fast. In fact, it's already there long before it begins. It's been a
while since I've seen detectives this stupid in a movie. Angelina Jolie plays an FBI agent called in to assist Montreal police in finding a killer. End of synopsis. The great Hungarian-born actor Tchéky Karyo is completely wasted in one of the detective roles; he and Olivier Martinez walk through the movie, utterly clueless, the Forrest Gumps of Canadian law enforcement. In their first scene together, Jolie uses her prestigious FBI forensic training to deduce the most blatantly evident things about a crime scene -which I would imagine should be obvious to any properly-trained detective. If I'm ever done in by a serial killer, I don't want the Montreal police assigned to my case.
The film contains a particularly pointless sequence that brought about sustained laughter for ten minutes afterward. Jolie discovers a secret entrance to a basement inside the house of Gena Rowlands (also wasted in this movie), where the killer lived in squalor as a young boy. Suddenly she's attacked in a sequence that ultimately has no place in the movie's logic. Why wait in a basement -on the very-very-off-chance that she'll come down there- just to knock her down and then run away?
There's so much more. A ridiculous red-herring subplot involving Kiefer Sutherland, which leads to an even more ridiculous set piece where he escapes capture by smashing through a window (you know, so as not to draw attention to himself). Characters survive auto accidents that would kill the most able-bodied humans, or at least send them into a coma or shock. There's the Angelina Soft Core Sex Scene, which must be a contract stipulation of some kind. There are the usual clichés such as the jarring "serial killer" music video opening credit sequence, the electricity dying magically whenever people must enter the cellar, and of course the big "twist" and final conflicts, all of which depend on a chain of events so unlikely, it's pure serendipity that the killer is caught at all, or that Jolie is alive. What a waste of time.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
