Taking Lives

Taking Lives is entertaining but predictable from director D.J. Caruso whose admirable in making this thriller but there are flaws that weigh it down. Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke are good as the two leads. Oliver Martinez, Tcheky Karyo, Jean-Hugh Anglade, and Gena Rowlands are effective as the supporting characters but they lack screen time and development because most of the focus is on Jolie. Kiefer Sutherland is solid in a brief extended appearance before being written out of the movie rather quickly. The rest of the cast are okay in their roles but no one stands out. The movie does have a little suspense but it doesn't pay off because the eventual twist I sort of saw coming. There's a little action including a chase that's well executed but the movie could've used more of it. If there was more suspense, action, character development, and a different twist besides the one they went with the film would've have been that bad. Taking Lives starts off decent but after a while it becomes kind of obvious who the killer is and after the reveal there's no more suspense. The pacing was a little slow at times which didn't help either. Lucikly Caruos kept the running time down to 103 minutes so it's not a total waste of time. Overall despite it's flaws Taking Lives is an okay thriller with a little suspense, action, and solid performances by the cast who make this movie worth watching at least once but after it's over you can't help but feel a little disappointed.

There are a lot of these crime thrillers about. Some, such as Copycat and Insomnia, offer a surprisingly good time; but more often than not, these films are a lot more like Murder by Numbers and The Bone Collector, and unfortunately; Taking Lives is like the latter. That being said, the film certainly isn't all bad; and definitely does have its moments. The plot has little regard for consistency or logic, as it constantly switches gears and throws in any number of events that are clearly there for dramatic effect and haven't been thought out properly. The film is an obvious derivative of successful nineties thriller, 'Seven' and some scenes, such as the entry into the murderer's home have been taken wholesale from the superior movie. The plot has a lot of elements, but we principally follow FBI agent Illeana Scott as she travels to Montreal in order to help their police force with a case that involves a serial killer who, not content to simply murder his victims, takes their identity and lives their lives for a period before moving onto his next victim.

The cinematography is dark and glossy, and sleazy settings mean that it's always a lot like Fincher's earlier flick. The pace of the film is poorly paced, as sometimes it's fast and furious, while at other times it's very dull. At almost an hour and fifty minutes, the film is too long; and a better editing job is definitely in order. The final half hour is of particular note for being poorly judged. It's far too slow, and means that rather than being memorable; the conclusion is tepid and disorientated. The first twist can be seen coming a mile off, and the way that it is revealed disregards logic for dramatic effect. The final twist doesn't work well either, as everything is far too convenient. It seems that in their effort to outdo all the other films in its class, the writers have forgotten that for dramatic effect to work, it needs to make sense. The acting is good enough, and it's obvious why the dark and mysterious Angelina Jolie was cast in the lead. Ethan Hawke, who I seem to like more every time I see him, is good; while Kiefer Sutherland is given nothing at all to do. On the whole, this is worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do; but there are better films that are like 'Taking Lives', than Taking Lives.

Despite my love of Angelina Jolie, I must say that Taking Lives wasted a lot of good opportunity.

Given that they invented an entirely new lead character, we can't really compare this to the book, so let's look at it as a movie of it's own right.

Jolie plays Illeana Scott, a somewhat strange FBI agent who is called up to Canada to investigate the grisly murders of several young men, all whom have had their identities stolen by the killer. New to the scene is witness James Costa, Ethan Hawke, who soon grows to have an attachment to Scott.

At turns formulaic and down right rip off (the credits are far too similar to be called a homage to SE7EN), Taking Lives is a very enjoyable piece of work.

Beautifully shot, the film wallows in its moods. It knows that it can be creepy, but it wears it out on its sleeves.

Angelina is on top form as Scott, although its a shame that the movie does stoop to the need for quick-sex-scene-with-unnecessary-titty-shot.

Ethan Hawke is bearable as Costa, although he and Jolie have very little chemistry.

Other players, Olivier Martinez, Gena Rowlands, Tcheky Karyo and Jean Hughes-Angalade are also quite good.

The film does have its highs: excellent cinematography, creepy sinister mood, two fantastic adrenaline-jump moments that I never saw coming. But it also has one FATAL flaw, and that is that anyone who has seen any piece of film or television before will be able to guess who the killer is. Still, a fun movie nevertheless.

7/10 If you get the chance to see it in the cinema, watch people's reactions to the 'scissors-scene'. I was amazed to see hoe genuinely horrified even the most hardened viewers in my cinema were.

Taking Lives is a police procedural about a serial killer whose M.O. is to `take' his successive victims' identities as well as their lives. He does this because he doesn't like who he is. His mother (a campy Gena Rowlands) preferred his twin brother and he vents his resentment about this over and over in his life of gruesome crime. This approach to sequential murder is the point of originality in what otherwise in most ways is a quite conventional film. It's directed by D.J. Caruso, a director of many TV cop flicks whose previous full-length movie, The Salton Sea, was a tweaker saga with Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio that was rich in cheesy atmosphere. This one makes more sense and carries some respectable thrills, but it's not certain it's altogether an improvement.

The movie begins with an intriguingly stylized prologue that shows the young teenage killer on his maiden voyage. He has probably already killed his twin brother. Now he has hit the road armed with a big wad of cash acquired by selling his mother's stolen jewelry, though we don't know all that till later. All we see is a sly, strange boy who meets another youth on a bus, hears his life story, and when the bus gets stuck on the highway, buys a cheap used car for them to continue traveling in. While they're fixing a flat, he pushes his traveling companion in front of a passing truck and his life of murderous identity theft begins.

The staging of this segment is edgy, the lighting baroque, the boys and the landscape vivid. While the filmmakers have our attention they create an original atmosphere that's not ever quite equaled when the story skips forward to the present.

For those of us weaned on Miss Marple, it's a bit of a shock to have a head dick as distractingly pretty as Angelina Jolie, she of the lips. Whether this was a smart career choice for Ms. Jolie is debatable. She works hard to be convincing. Another wrinkle - hardly a new one, though - is that once the killer has been `made', he constantly points out his similarities with her. She's FBI, but she's as focused on killing as he is. She dines and sleeps with photos of bashed heads and lopped limbs perched in front of her: she's a bit ghoulish in her obsession with her work. But serial killers and their chief investigators always bond, if we're to go by the Hannibal Lector stories.

Iliana (Jolie) has been called in by French Canadian homicide detectives, one of whom, Olivier Martinez, has lips as voluptuous as hers. His boss, Tchéky Karyo, is suave and European; but the best of the three, Jean-Hugues Anglade, is merely beat-up looking and real. It's another minor twist that this movie was not only shot in Canada, but is actually set there, though the filmmakers insist on perversely saying it's Montreal, while constantly showing views of Quebec City as establishing shots. All three French actors speak an English that's hard to understand. I could have done without Martinez's glam looks in favor of someone with clearer diction. His mumbles may have worked for him as Diane Lane's Euro-hunk lover in Unfaithful, but for a police procedural, they don't.

As time goes on the baroque cinematography, which casts three quarters of every scene in deep shadow, begins to be as murky as the staccato Frenchified dialogue. Nonetheless the movie is stylish and watchable, up to a point. Ethan Hawke appears as a nervous witness who tries to save one of the murder victims and makes a drawing of the killer. His role evolves into one of the edgiest things he's done. Already ravaged and gaunt from his impending breakup with Uma, poor chap, he gives this his tortured all. It's been a long way from the bland schoolboy role in Dead Poets Society that first brought him notice. Kiefer Sutherland does a turn that has become a cliché for him. The obvious surprises nonetheless still seem surprising, though the finale is pure camp, shameful really. A sudden car chase is irritating and unnecessary, though happily brief.

Since we began with a close look at the killer, throughout the rest we miss his point of view. Even when we get close to him we're teased into thinking we don't know who he is. The audience is left longing for a more intimate picture of the criminal psychopathic mind (à la Highsmith), the sort of thing that the flashback opening sequence hinted at. Throughout one feels that director Caruso is reaching for something a little bit original. He even has a score by Philip Glass, which used to be a distinction. It hardly is any more. There are three movies with Glass music showing right now: this, Secret Window, and The Fog of War. Taking Lives has been widely reviled by critics whose impatience with the genre makes them overlook the fact that it's really a bit above average - if we ignore the crappy final scene.

This was a so-so serial killer movie with good and bad marks. The good marks were mainly for keeping the viewer's interest. You don't fall asleep watching this film. Angeline Jolie looks as good as I've ever seen her, facially and figure-wise.

The film loses marks for an easy-to-solve story, some credibility gaps especially later in the movie and too small a part for Keifer Sutherland to get third billing. He has a very short role in here, hardly worth billing which was a bit disappointing.

Also, the French accents by Jean-Hgues Anglade and Tcheky Karyo were hard for me to understand, forcing me to put on the English subtitles.